When Kevin Durant stunned the basketball world in July 2016 by signing with the Golden State Warriors, it wasn’t just a blockbuster free agency move.
It was the product of a carefully orchestrated, and brutally honest, conversation between the franchise’s core players.
For years, the “Hamptons 5” pitch session has been shrouded in myth. Now, Stephen Curry is peeling back the curtain, and what he reveals explains how one of the NBA’s most dominant dynasties came to be.
Durant was coming off a Western Conference Finals loss with the Oklahoma City Thunder, weighing offers from several contenders, when Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, and Andre Iguodala flew to New York to meet him.
It wasn’t the Warriors‘ front office that closed the deal, Curry admitted. It was the players.
“That’s where the Hamptons 5 nickname came,” Curry said while promoting his new book Shot Ready. “It was just us, no management.
“We sat down and told him straight: no jealousy, no ego battles, just basketball. We asked him what he wanted out of his prime, and we promised we’d give him the respect and accountability to match it.”
For Durant, the personal pitch was as surprising as it was persuasive. At the time, he admitted he didn’t think Golden State, fresh off a 73-win season and an NBA title the year before, would even be interested in him.
“I was shocked those guys flew out,” he said back in 2016. “They’d already won so much.”
But the honesty of the conversation cut through the noise of executives and agents. Curry said the moment management left the room was when things truly clicked.
“KD asked the best questions, who gets the last shot, how do you handle conflict, how do you keep everyone happy? And we told him the truth. That’s what made it real.”
Had Durant turned them down, the Warriors risked looking desperate, even fractured, after their Finals collapse against LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Instead, his “yes” changed the course of basketball history.
The KD effect
On the floor, Durant‘s arrival made Golden State nearly unstoppable. They claimed back-to-back championships in 2017 and 2018, with Durant winning Finals MVP both times.
The so-called “Hamptons 5” lineup – Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green, and Iguodala – became one of the most feared units the NBA has ever seen.
Off the court, the move was equally seismic. Golden State’s revenue jumped by more than $50 million in Durant‘s first year, fueled by soaring ticket sales, global TV coverage, and a merchandising boom. The Warriors were no longer just champions; they were a global brand.
Durant himself later highlighted why the partnership worked. “It’s not the threes that kill teams,” he said. “It’s the movement, the spacing, the way we trust each other. That’s what crushes you.”
What’s striking in hindsight is not just the dominance, but the swagger. Thompson once admitted that timeouts called by opposing coaches to stop Warriors‘ scoring runs had the opposite effect.
“It gives us a nice little break, actually,” he laughed. Green relished the challenge too: “It’s more enjoyable when they call a timeout, and we come out and score eight straight after.”
Curry put it simply: “Once a couple of shots go down, our confidence goes through the roof. A timeout doesn’t bother that.”
Still, even the greatest runs have friction. Thompson recently reflected on his years with Golden State, admitting the dynasty wasn’t without its rough patches.
“There were a lot of scuffles, bad words, hurt feelings,” he said. “But when you hang a banner, you forget all that. Winning made it worth it.”
The legacy of a decision
Looking back, Curry views the Durant recruitment as a turning point not only for the Warriors but for the NBA. “We took a chance, and it worked,” he said. “Those talks in the Hamptons weren’t just about KD, they were about trust. That trust carried us through everything.”
For all the accolades, banners, and debates Durant‘s decision sparked, the heart of the story is surprisingly simple: four stars sat in a room with another, and they told the truth.
The dynasty that followed – five straight Finals, three championships, and a cultural juggernaut – began not with a contract, but with a conversation.
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