Kevin Durant will not change his approach this season just because he could become a free agent in 2019.
The Golden State Warriors small forward opted not to sign a long-term deal in the offseason leading to uncertainty about his future with the two-time defending NBA champions.
On Sunday the Warriors begin their pre-season campaign ahead of next month's opening match against the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Durant insists talk about his next move will not distract his preparations.
"It was one of those things where you're just confident in your skills, and you kind of just want to take it year by year," Durant told reporters when asked about his new contract.
"And I think to keep my options open, it was the best thing for me.
"I could have easily signed a long-term deal, but I just wanted to take it a season by season and see where it takes me.
"And I think this whole year is going to be a fun, exciting year for us all and I'm looking forward to just focusing on that. And we'll see what happens after the year."
Draymond Green's future is also uncertain heading into the new season despite telling reporters he was "confident that I'll be here for a very long time", and Stephen Curry is confident his team-mates will not lose focus.
"That doesn't matter right now," he said. "We have five preseason games, 82 regular-season games and hopefully 16 wins in the playoffs, and then you can ask all the questions you want.
"I think KD [Durant] is going to have that perspective, DeMarcus [Cousins] had that perspective, even Draymond and Klay [Thompson] with their contract situations, you can nit-pick everything, and that's what's going to happen.
"It's part of what we do for a living. But the best teams and the best individuals are able to shut that out when it comes to playing basketball and enjoying the opportunity that we have as a team to do that.
"I feel like we have the right guys with the right mindset to be able to turn that off when they need to."
