I’ve thought about this long and hard since Kevin Durant’s weak exit on the Player’s Tribune on July 4th. I’ve thought within myself how I’d view Durant upon his return to Oklahoma City. My decision is that I’ll just view him as any other visiting player. Which means I won’t boo him, but I won’t cheer him as well. He’ll just be the Golden State player wearing No. 35. My heart won’t tug, but neither will I feel enough emotional angst to compell me to boo or yell angry things into the Chesapeake air.
But I won’t hold it against any of my Thunder fans who feel the need to boo him all night long. It’s their right and even though I won’t be joining them — I in no way will ever judge them negatively for doing so.
Let’s make this clear, Kevin Durant is a supremely talented player who is a once in a generation type player. Only problem is–he’s to date shared the same generation with LeBron James who to date has owned Kevin Durant–not even close. I get that part. I get the part where he and Charlie Bell calibrated his best chances to get past LeBron and finally claim a championship at either the college or professional level. I get it. Durant and his handlers don’t want him to end his career being the Jim Kelly of the NBA.
Under the rules he was a free agent. The word implies freedom. He chose to exercise his freedom. He chose the easiest path to beating LeBron with Steph, Klay, Draymond, and Iggy giving him the pieces he needs to finally win a championship. I get all that, I just don’t respect any of it as a league wide NBA fan. I thought what he did was not only bad for Oklahoma City, but more importantly bad for the league as a whole.
I would have totally respected Durant for leaving OKC to either join the Clippers, the Celtics, or even the Spurs. But he and Charlie Bell didn’t do that–they instead joined a team which won 73 games last season and would have won their second straight NBA championship if Draymond Green hadn’t done one of the dumbest things in NBA Finals history in Game 4.
I know that Durant and his handlers want to spin this in a different way, but that’s just basically not the truth–and again it was his choice. When I listen to Durant speak nowadays it’s like I’m hearing Kellyanne Conway or the toady gargoyle Sean Spicer spinning their nonsensical bullshit. Durant left the team which was one game away from making the NBA Finals to join the team which won three straight against Durant to make the Finals. And to be clear, I was at midcourt near the floor in Game 6…I was there. And what I saw was a generational player just flat out choke going 10-31 and committing two incredibly bad turnovers in the final minutes. It was like watching Dustin Johnson five put in previous U.S Opens. It was what it was.
When Harden comes to town, I still love him. I still wear his T shirts. I’d die for him to ask me to tag along at one of his yacht parties. I’ll always have a place in my heart for Jeff Green. For crying out loud, my son named his lab Perk and I’d hug his namesake and buy him a beer anytime… same with Thabo and his wife. I cried when we traded Serge and I’ll be a fan of his as long as he plays. Even when Russell leaves at some point–he’ll be loved here forever unless of course he joins the Warriors.
But with Durant…piss on him. Because at the end of the day he’s somewhat of a transparent phony. And that’s the thing here in Oklahoma City with people–we were all led to believe by things he said and did that he was different than the normal professional athlete. We kid ourselves into believing he was either the next Tim Duncan or Dirk or Kobe or even D Wade before his ugly exit from Miami. Or like Peyton Manning in Indianapolis or Ray Bourque in Boston or Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay–it appeared Durant was not only a special player, but a unique person. In every way Durant and his handlers marketed him that way, but in the end, it appears he was in no way different from most pro athletes. But that’s on us to some degree in that no one put a gun to our heads and told us to read something between the lines which obviously wasn’t there. That part is on us.
So when Durant’s here on Saturday I won’t boo a single time, but neither will my heart tug. I’ve moved on, my heart has moved on as well.