Report: Kevin Durant to remain with Nike on new deal

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Kevin Durant isn’t going anywhere.

Well, isn’t changing shoe companies, I mean.

Per Marc Stein and Darren Rovell of ESPN.com, Durant is set to remain with Nike, who will match Under Armour’s massive offer that reached upwards of $300 million over 10 years.

Nike has countered Under Armour’s offer of between $265 million and $285 million and believes it will keep Kevin Durant for the next 10 years, sources told ESPN. Nike, whose seven-year deal that guaranteed Durant $60 million is expiring, made an initial offer of about $20 million a year that was far from what Durant was looking for. Under Armour’s huge play for Durant had many believing that Nike would even let him go at that price.

But on Saturday, Nike officials told Durant and his team at Jay Z’s Roc Nation Sports that it would indeed step up enough to allow the world’s largest shoe and apparel company to keep him in its robust stable of basketball endorsers that includes LeBron James and Kobe Bryant.

While the exact Nike offer for Durant isn’t known, sources told ESPN that Durant should make more — in base and royalties — than the Thunder will pay him over the next two seasons ($41.2 million). That’s why fans in Oklahoma City were nervous about a possible move to Under Armour, which could have steered him more to returning to his local roots to play for the Washington Wizards when he becomes a free agent after the 2015-16 season.

So, WHAT DOES IT MEAN? That he stays loyal to his original people? That he hates D.C.? That he now can take less money in 2016 because he made so much here? Here’s what it actually means: Nothing, other than Durant is going to make a crapton of dollars from Nike over the next 10 years. There would’ve been a lot more to read in to had he gone to Under Armour, and he certainly seemed completely willing to, but Nike made the wise choice to lock him back up.