Kevin Durant is on his fourth NBA team and trying to win his third championship, but his first outside the Golden State Warriors. Durant's initial trade request came soon after the Warriors won the 2022 championship.
“I don’t care about legacy,” Durant told The Athletic. “I used to. I used to want to carve out a lane or space in this game for myself that people can remember, but it’s become too much of a thing now. It just becomes too much of a focus on other people. What’s he done, what’s he done? Comparisons. Before, when we wasn’t doing all this debating, I cared about it … I’m about to be in the same breath as these top guys. It was big.
“Nowadays, I truly, truly don’t care. I truly just want to go out there and produce, be the best that I could be, go home, hang with my family, that’s it.”
When Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder to sign with the Warriors, he had a realization that it would be impossible for many people to view his career in a logical way since it was the type of path never taken by another superstar.
“Once I left to go to the Warriors (in 2016), I figured any logical thing, when it comes to me it’s out of the window,” Durant said. “When it comes to me, people are not going to think in a logical way or simply look at what I’ve done and say that’s it. They gotta add a narrative to it, they gotta push something to discredit me. Once I left to go to the Warriors, it’s been the gymnastics on how to discredit me every step of the way. It’s like, damn, that’s not even fun no more like engaging with people because y’all aren’t even being truthful. You move the goalpost every time, you expect the most out of me and if I don’t reach it I’m a failure. It’s like, what’s the problem?
