Very good piece by Berry Tramel over at newsoksports on this very thought. Please take the time to read it. Did KD mislead, fool, or lie to us to make us think he’d never leave Oklahoma City like Dirk and Tim Duncan have never left their original teams?
And the answer is no.
Kevin Durant never openly lied during this season as best as I can remember. For the most part I thought he handled the free agency relatively well.
But here’s where I have to take Kevin Durant to task. He claimed he wasn’t at all like LeBron James and seemed to say it as if he operated at a higher plane than the greatest athletic brand living. This is where I take Durant to task.
He’s exactly like LeBron James. There’s no difference whatsoever except LeBron has more girth, could play tight end in the NFL, has three rings, and is clearly recognized as the best overall player in the game today.
That’s the only difference. Both are as much corporate brands as much as they are ball players.
I thought Durant might be different because of the MVP speech and several other signs during the years where it appeared he could be another Tim Duncan or Dirk. But that’s on me and anyone else who read something between the lines which was obviously never there to begin with.
Kevin Durant is the very same age as my son. I’m familiar with this generation. Not all of them are knuckleheads. My son has changed a little over the past eight years as he’s finished college, embarked on a professional career, and married a young woman any father in law would be thrilled to call his daughter.
People change. Especially young guys going through the maturation process.
Like my son, Kevin Durant has grown into another stage of adulthood.
To Durant’s credit he evidently did call Sam Presti before that ridiculous statement was released on the Players’ Tribune. That wins some consolation points with me and unless Sam Presti is lying it did with him as well.
My suggestion to Durant would have been to have made a brief personal statement in person instead of the Players’ Tribune release. Durant now has the look of a human who’s now run more by agents, handlers, and leeches other than his own inner feelings. It would have been nice to see some human emotion like we saw at the MVP speech instead of the spinning from his handlers to stabilize his brand.
We should never be shocked at what happens in sports in today’s culture. Our sports heroes our just a mere reflection of how shallow and superficial we’ve become as a culture. How screwed up we are. Kids don’t read books. They watch reality television and follow idiots on twitter. Teddy Roosevelt isn’t the Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump is.
Words of advice–don’t put athletes on a pedestal they don’t belong to be standing on in the first place because almost every time you’ll get your heart broken.
So like Tramel wrote in his piece none of us should really be mad at what just transpired. It’s almost exclusively on us for holding out the innocent hope Kevin Durant would be our Dirk or our Tim Duncan and be a little deeper than his generational peers. I know for a fact I’d look at Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay and think to myself, ‘if Rodgers can stay a Packer, why can’t KD remain a Thunderer.’ Never once did Durant make a comparison to Aaron Rodgers and small markets to this extent.
Kevin Durant never promised us any of this.
We just hoped it would be so and that’s squarely on us.
Thanks for the great piece, Tramel.
Mike Jackson