ATLANTA — In the transactionally obsessed NBA world — even midseason, months before free agency — half of the bubbling storylines are tied in some way to the summer. Come July 2018, will LeBron James and Paul George move locales? Come July 2019, can Kyrie Irving and Kawhi Leonard be pried from their current teams?



Those far-off dreams even touch the Warriors a bit: Klay Thompson, part of that 2019 class that is due to hit free agency 16 months from now, is on the (albeit unlikely) wish list of many.



But another Warriors name, a bigger, more influential star, is actually next up on the docket, yet he is always omitted from these discussions: Kevin Durant, who signed a two-year deal with the Warriors in 2017 with an opt-out this summer, is free to sign wherever he wants in four months. But no one across the league seems to even pretend like it’s a possibility that he will leave Oakland.



So it seemed wise, following the Warriors’...