Following the Golden State Warriors‘ second NBA title in the last three years, there were many questions heading into the offseason concerning their players entering free agency.

However, the Warriors were able to retain all of their key free agents due in large part to Kevin Durant taking around $10 million less than the max per season to provide the front office with addition salary-cap space to offer more intriguing deals to their players.

This is something that Warriors general manager Bob Myers made a point t0 emphasize the importance of Durant's huge financial sacrifice, according to NBC Sports.

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“His gesture of taking less gave us the ability to be very aggressive in pursuing Sean and Andre,” Myers said. “I can pretty much unequivocally say without it, we’re not looking at the team we have right now. What Kevin did shows who he is, shows what he’s about and I think it’s clear that that’s winning.

“Without him doing that it would have been a different roster, and clearly to me, a roster that wasn’t as good as the one we have right now.”

It may be a small gesture from Durant's perspective, but it allowed for the Warriors to keep their key bench players in Andre Iguodala, who was entertaining offers from other teams, along with Shaun Livingston, and Zaza Pachulia. Myers was also able to add another scorer off the bench in Nick Young on a one-year deal.

More importantly, Durant's sacrifice keeps the Warriors' championship window open for the next few seasons and possibly beyond that.