Option A: Stay with a team in a small market that you have history with. The other good player on your team is ball dominant and doesn't get you the ball in the right spots at the right times. You are a better player, but it has grown increasingly hard to prove it as in the playoffs he would take bad shots during crunch time. He seems much more worried about personal accolades than he does what the team does. That being said you came within a game of making the NBA Finals. Overall your franchise underachieved as many thought you would win multiple titles. Even the 3rd best player on the team from years earlier is starting to get more publicity than you in Houston. Still, you basically made this franchise in the smallest market in the NBA and are the face of the franchise so you have loyalty. Your coaching has been spotty and they just brought in a new coach that did better in the playoffs. You would make more money if you stayed on your contract. Not as many endorsement deals as again a small market team that won't win as much.

Option B: Go to a team in a much larger market that just beat you in the playoffs by one game. They lost in the Finals by the same margin the year before. This team shares the ball and spaces the floor unlike any team in the history of the NBA. This is exactly what you wish your current team would do. The coach is forward thinking and has installed many of the basketball principles that have changed offenses in the NBA. You would not be required to be the leader as there is already plenty of that on the roster. You would immediately be considered the favorite to win the NBA and you would finally have the bullets to beat Lebron who has owned you in your career. Your salary would be really nice, but a bit less than if you stayed in the small market. Your endorsement deals would likely increase in a bigger market on a better team. On the basketball court you would no longer be frustrated by playing with perhaps the most me-first player of his era.


So with option B you would likely get more overall money (I am betting Durant makes the most overall dollars in his career this year), with a better team playing the type of basketball that you want to play. Now is he chasing rings? I'm sure he wants to win. But even without that who in their right mind would choose option A? Loyalty is honestly the only reason to do it.