Is Durant really gonna take a pay cut now after seeing Steph get that super max?
He's making about $26.5M this year. The two realistic options for his offseason were:
* GS renounces Iguodala and Livingston to clear enough cap space to pay Durant the absolute max they could - about $35.4M
* GS re-signs Iggy and Livingston with Bird Rights, then gives Durant a 20% increase*, so $31.8M. Durant would likely take another one-plus-one (two year contract with a player option) so he could get another raise from GSW next year (20% is enough to take him to the max) and then they could either Early Bird him or he could take one more one-plus-one before going for a super max with GSW having full Bird rights.
Given that GS has already re-signed Iggy and Livingston, option 1 is already off the table. There's no chance GS didn't already talk this over with Durant though. If he was really gunning for the $35.4M option, either GS would have known before or everyone would know by now.
tl;dr: yes, he's going to take a "pay cut". By which we really mean he will get a 20% raise instead of a 33% raise.
* this is the part that I think is relatively new in CBAs? Not sure. I feel like under previous CBAs, a capped-out team couldn't offer a 20% raise to a free agent. I don't know. One-and-ones are relatively new too.