From a practical standpoint having a player option is so the player has the option. If that player wants to opt-in or opt-out, that is their decision.
So, KD is right, LeBron opting out isn’t something to be critical of since it was his contractual option. Here is what he had to say courtesy of Washington Post via Pro Basketball Talk.
“I don’t know what the big deal is,” Durant said, shortly after his “KD7″ was revealed. “You know, as a player, I think that’s the best way to go about it. You can have all your options. It’s better for you as a player to opt-out, because you can get a market deal, you can get more years. You never know what will happen if you pass up on that. So I didn’t know what the big deal was. I’m sure it was a decision he made — something he was thinking about — for him and his family..
“I don’t think it’s fair,” Durant told a small group of local reporters. “I don’t think anything that you guys criticize LeBron [about] is fair. He switched teams; he’s not the first guy to do it. He decided to opt out; he’s not the first guy to do it. Sometimes a lot of people criticize him a little bit too much for doing normal things, doing stuff that everybody has done. [Even] Tim Duncan went into free agency before. He got courted by quite a few teams. We’ll see what happens with me, but everybody’s done the same thing. He’s not the first.”
All this means is KD is going to opt-out and he is just preparing OKC for it. It is my opinion if they haven’t won a title by 2016 he is going to leave, but a lot can happen between now and 2016, so we will see what happens.