Durant To Golden State

[vanguard100]

Sorry he left it really really sucks.

Joining a team of spoilt brats is just the icing on the cake. Terrible day for basketball.

The Cavs are trash. Lebron is a fraud who had to cry to the league to suspend Draymond because he couldn't beat the Warriors straight up. Kyrie is trash. Curry got injured in the 1st round and was never the same again. Bogut and Iguodala got injured. The Cavs championship is fraudulent. Enjoy the Warriors dynasty. The NBA belongs to the Warriors for the next 5 years.

[vanguard100]

Sorry he left it really really sucks.

Joining a team of spoilt brats is just the icing on the cake. Terrible day for basketball.

The Cavs are trash. Lebron is a fraud who had to cry to the league to suspend Draymond because he couldn't beat the Warriors straight up. Kyrie is trash. Curry got injured in the 1st round (MCL sprain) and was never the same again. Bogut and Iguodala got injured. The Cavs championship is fraudulent. Enjoy the Warriors dynasty. The NBA belongs to the Warriors for the next 5 years.

[bondom34]

Sorry he left it really really sucks.

Joining a team of spoilt brats is just the icing on the cake. Terrible day for basketball.

The Cavs are trash. Lebron is a fraud who had to cry to the league to suspend Draymond because he couldn't beat the Warriors straight up. Kyrie is trash. Curry got injured in the 1st round (MCL sprain) and was never the same again. Bogut and Iguodala got injured. The Cavs championship is fraudulent. Enjoy the Warriors dynasty. The NBA belongs to the Warriors for the next 5 years.

Nah, still has no heart.

Durant doesn't lead, he follows, he's weak. GSW has talent, but chokes. At least the Cavs don't do that.

[Dupp]

Sorry he left it really really sucks.

Joining a team of spoilt brats is just the icing on the cake. Terrible day for basketball.

The Cavs are trash. Lebron is a fraud who had to cry to the league to suspend Draymond because he couldn't beat the Warriors straight up. Kyrie is trash. Curry got injured in the 1st round (MCL sprain) and was never the same again. Bogut and Iguodala got injured. The Cavs championship is fraudulent. Enjoy the Warriors dynasty. The NBA belongs to the Warriors for the next 5 years.

[LiSTWithLani]

Devastating stuff for OKC. When Vince left TO we got in return a poo-poo platter that's only possible benefit was helping us be bad and securing a better pick.

As for the NBA, max contracts shouldn't exist, or a system that includes money earned from sponsorships that allows these guys to turn down a max, because they're earning it elsewhere should be implemented. Paying tax is also an unfair advantage to winning teams, a hard cap should exist at some point if not no max contracts. Something has to give.

[baldur]

Sorry he left it really really sucks.

Joining a team of spoilt brats is just the icing on the cake. Terrible day for basketball.

The Cavs are trash. Lebron is a fraud who had to cry to the league to suspend Draymond because he couldn't beat the Warriors straight up. Kyrie is trash. Curry got injured in the 1st round (MCL sprain) and was never the same again. Bogut and Iguodala got injured. The Cavs championship is fraudulent. Enjoy the Warriors dynasty. The NBA belongs to the Warriors for the next 5 years.

when i was a ballboy, i was speaking nonsense like you. then i settled. its because you load yourself with a lot of things to say before your account being entirely activated and all of a sudden you explode and this is the result.

[yesh]

Firstly the disclaimer; I'm English, and my love affair with basketball only goes back a few years, mainly because of 2k. I support OKC because they were the first team that ever drafted me in that game before I even really knew who KD and russ were. I'd always liked the game but football (soccer for you septics!) is and always will be my first love, where the whole transfer strategy of every team in the game is to try and create a super team.

As my team has got worse and worse over the years, we've lost a number of good players to rivals, the worst being Fernando Torres to Chelsea - a team that are run and owned by a russian gangster who took advantage of the russian people as the industries were nationalised at the end of the soviet era.

He is a classless individual, and he bought a team mainly famous for it's hooligan and racist fans for most of my life, and yet he turned them round over night by investing his ill-gotten gains. That transfer hurt me because this wasn't sport anymore, it was who had the richest owner.

Durant is my favourite player in the sport. He still is, and I ca't be mad at him for making the decision he made, because it's his career and his life. I'll still be watching OKC this year, but I'll also be watching some warriors games because of KD.

However, the glossing over of Lebrons career has me really confused by this board. He went to Miami to form a super team, and although they weren't great the season he joined, he knew what he was doing by hooking up with Wade (and should have been Melo) and Bosh. He knew what he was creating - it wasn't a gamble in any way.

Does anyone seriously think that him going back to Cleveland was about doing what was right for the city? Then I have a bridge to nowhere you may be interested in purchasing. He left on the back of his team getting taken to the cleaners by the spurs. It was an embarrassingly complete annihilation of his team. If Miami win that and look set for another couple of titles do you think Lebron goes home under those circumstances? Not a chance in hell.

Then we look at Cleveland; he knew he had Kyrie and OK'd the wiggins/love trade before his return. He would have got the assurances that he could re-shape the roster as he saw fit, which he did. He knew what he was doing, and he kept himself out of trouble in the eastern conference. Again. Where he knew his path to the finals was pretty much guaranteed every year unless a team sprung up out of nowhere.

I can't argue with what the man has done in the last 2 finals. He's been immense and the main reason his team earned that title, but I really don't get the way Lebron is given a pass for his actions, and yet KD is classed as this weak loser. KD will win championships at gs, and the chances are he'll get a couple of finals MVP's to boot.

What he's done is no different from Lebron. He looked at his own situation, and made it better for him personally.

I'm more of a fair-weather OKC fan than hardcore because I don't have the energy to be so completely let down by another bunch of athletes after my football team, so I can be objective.

Anyone saying Lebron and KD's actions are different is completely wide of the mark.

[spearsy23]

Firstly the disclaimer; I'm English, and my love affair with basketball only goes back a few years, mainly because of 2k. I support OKC because they were the first team that ever drafted me in that game before I even really knew who KD and russ were. I'd always liked the game but football (soccer for you septics!) is and always will be my first love, where the whole transfer strategy of every team in the game is to try and create a super team.

As my team has got worse and worse over the years, we've lost a number of good players to rivals, the worst being Fernando Torres to Chelsea - a team that are run and owned by a russian gangster who took advantage of the russian people as the industries were nationalised at the end of the soviet era.

He is a classless individual, and he bought a team mainly famous for it's hooligan and racist fans for most of my life, and yet he turned them round over night by investing his ill-gotten gains. That transfer hurt me because this wasn't sport anymore, it was who had the richest owner.

Durant is my favourite player in the sport. He still is, and I ca't be mad at him for making the decision he made, because it's his career and his life. I'll still be watching OKC this year, but I'll also be watching some warriors games because of KD.

However, the glossing over of Lebrons career has me really confused by this board. He went to Miami to form a super team, and although they weren't great the season he joined, he knew what he was doing by hooking up with Wade (and should have been Melo) and Bosh. He knew what he was creating - it wasn't a gamble in any way.

Does anyone seriously think that him going back to Cleveland was about doing what was right for the city? Then I have a bridge to nowhere you may be interested in purchasing. He left on the back of his team getting taken to the cleaners by the spurs. It was an embarrassingly complete annihilation of his team. If Miami win that and look set for another couple of titles do you think Lebron goes home under those circumstances? Not a chance in hell.

Then we look at Cleveland; he knew he had Kyrie and OK'd the wiggins/love trade before his return. He would have got the assurances that he could re-shape the roster as he saw fit, which he did. He knew what he was doing, and he kept himself out of trouble in the eastern conference. Again. Where he knew his path to the finals was pretty much guaranteed every year unless a team sprung up out of nowhere.

I can't argue with what the man has done in the last 2 finals. He's been immense and the main reason his team earned that title, but I really don't get the way Lebron is given a pass for his actions, and yet KD is classed as this weak loser. KD will win championships at gs, and the chances are he'll get a couple of finals MVP's to boot.

What he's done is no different from Lebron. He looked at his own situation, and made it better for him personally.

I'm more of a fair-weather OKC fan than hardcore because I don't have the energy to be so completely let down by another bunch of athletes after my football team, so I can be objective.

Anyone saying Lebron and KD's actions are different is completely wide of the mark.

Did LeBron lose to the heat directly before joining them? Did the heat break the all time record for wins without LeBron? Did the heat tell LeBron how many times they were going to beat him if he didn't join them? Did LeBron leave a championship caliber supporting cast? Did LeBron call out other guys for joining super teams?

[bondom34]

Oh, hey, apologists.

[Patches Perry]

Anyone saying Lebron and KD's actions are different is completely wide of the mark.

A couple points on this …

First, and the most obvious to me - LeBron was heavily criticized for his actions. So why should Durant not be criticized, if they are by your own admission, the same? You seem to think we’re giving LeBron a pass while condemning KD, which is inconsistent in your view, but you’re condemning LeBron while giving KD a pass, so what’s the difference? Either you condemn both or neither, if they’re the same to you.

Secondly, there are more differences than similarities in their situations. The similarities being that they both tried to make it very easy on themselves. They were both criticized for that. That’s about where the similarities stop. The differences are that Kevin Durant signed with a team that had already established their dominance without him, beat him a month prior, and really didn’t need him in the slightest. He jumped on the bandwagon. LeBron, to his credit, colluded to make something new. LeBron created a new bandwagon. They had to do all the leg work of creating and working out a new system altogether. Had LeBron jumped to the Lakers around 2008, they would have been similar.

[Dupp]

Lebron got way more criticism for leaving than durant, People just hate lebron a lot more. I remember half the site had a lebron jersey burning as their avatar (myself included).

[StepBackCrack]

I know this was extremely hard for all OKC fans (especially the ones that live in OKC) but Kevin at end of the day did nothing wrong imo. He was a free agent and did what's best for himself (in many aspects not just winning) not what most people wanted him to do and that's perfectly fine. Some people don't realise how selfish they sound when they want pro athletes to spend their lives in a work place they want not what the pro athletes want. It's really ridiculous to me. He had the right to choose where to live and where to play. Every human being seeks to be happier after all. Hating on Kevin for seeking his own happiness seems hypocritical imo because we all want to be happier. I can fully understand the disappointment from OKC fans tho. Losing a player like Kevin is never easy.

I don't live in OKC. I rooted in the past 4/5 years for OKC only because KD is there. He is my all-time fav player (Steph is among my fav players but I never rooted for him against KD). So basically I'm a bigger player fan than a team fan unlike most people who are posting here I guess. Therefore him leaving OKC wasn't a huge issue for me. Last season, part of me wanted him to stay and part of me wanted him to leave. I wasn't sure of what I really wanted of him to do to be quite honest. I thought as long as he is happy and healthy, I'm ok with whatever he decides to do to be honest. It's his life and I'm gonna always support him. After all he is the reason I'm this interested in the NBA and I'm quite thankful for that. I loved the game through him. His beautiful style of play is the biggest reason. His down to earth personality also made him even more likeable to me. He is a nice guy imo. I'm pretty sure he meant no harm to anyone but sadly that can never be avoided after leaving OKC. It's completely out of his control. He was loved in OKC and meant a lot to the state. So obviously people in OKC were hurt by this move and it's completely understandable. I feel for all of them and I wish they got over it by now. After all, the NBA is a business and such things do happen. By the way, there is a double standards that really annoys me in the NBA in general. Teams can trade players any time they want without being hated on. Basically controlling their future to a degree but when Kevin as a free agent chooses his future, then he is Satan obviously! It's a pretty obvious double standards to me. Serge and Harden for example didn't want to leave OKC but OKC's management didn't care about that and traded them. There is nothing wrong in that business-wise obviously but all I'm saying is that loyalty in the NBA is one way street unfortunately (most of the times). Therefore it's kind of overrated in the NBA. It's only expected from the player towards the franchise he plays for not the other way around in most cases. I'm pretty sure there were some huge Serge fans who were pretty sad to see OKC trade him but at the end of the day, it's a business and these things are normal in the NBA. Personally, I was really upset seeing Harden traded. Him and Kevin are really close friends (way closer than KD and Russ) and James played an important role in OKC's finals run in 2012. Trading him was a huge loss for OKC and Kevin for sure.

The memories of KD in an OKC jersey will never be forgotten for me. He gave me so much joy and the OKC fans as well while playing in that team and over the years I loved the OKC fans. They are a great fanbase. I wish them nothing but the best honestly. Steven Adams is still among my fav players and I expect big things from him. He is so awesome really. Great great guy. I think he has the potential to be a star. He is still pretty young.

[bondom34]

Lots of excuses...

Its not that he left, its where and how.

He's ultimately an ass, and a bit of a coward. As much as I want to say something nice, I can't and won't ever respect him. He's a terrible leader, and ultimately he took a way out where he'd have the path of least resistance. He killed off any shot at good will and his legacy, like it or not, will go down as a guy who quit when things got tough. He may get a ring or 2 but his MVP days are now over. He kissed any hope of going down as a top 10 all time player goodbye when he left, which is all on him.

I get it, you're a fan of a single player, that's great. But it takes serious blinders to not see how this was a big wuss move. It deserves 100 times the criticism Lebron ever got.

And with that, I'm finally locking this now largely useless thread, if anyone wants it open PM me. To me, this part of OKC Thunder history is over, and Durant, as a basketball player, is dead to OKC. Sorry Kev, but as far as your career goes, I hope you fail. Every time you pull an iso post up from 20 feet out and clank one I'll laugh, and Russ won't be there to take the heat.

Oh and lastly if you think this is on team management lol that's a weak apology if I ever heard one.

Edit: Oh, and Russ has been the leader of this team for at least 2 years now, coincidentally the same time that Durant was overtaken pretty clearly by at least Curry and Lebron (and to me Russ) as no longer being the best player in the league. He's a fantastic player, but a terrible on court leader and was overtaken for the best in the league, which amazes me given how he was playing 2 years ago.