Revived wrote:DarkHawk wrote:Durant has come a long way from the likable "you're the real MVP" to where he is now. The dude can't say anything positive. He's a dick through and through. Just stay quiet and be humble. You know what you did and fans don't like you because of it. Don't make people hate the person as much as the player though. That's what it feels like he's doing now.
To be fair, a lot of the basketball talk this summer is "Can any team beat the Warriors?" or "Did the Warriors ruin basketball?" and people don't talk about Steph, Klay, and Draymond as the reason for this, it's all Durant talk. KD took the Warriors from a champion to a dynasty, and there's a lot of talk about why he should not have gone from personal (he should be a competitor! be his own man!) to business (the salary cap should've been smoothed to prevent this from happening!). The fact is, the league (fans, media, other players) hasn't moved on from his decision two years ago. I mean, LeBron went through the same thing in Miami, but people have forgiven him because he went back to Cleveland and won a championship there. He's been absolved, which is why no one really gives him **** for going to the Lakers except Kobe fans.
I think part of it too is KD just wanted to be recognized but he ended up getting vilified, which he wasn't expecting. I think he believes he's the best player in the world, it's that no one was seeing that while he was in OKC. I mean, in terms of who is the NBA's best player, it felt like the conversations went from Kobe vs. LeBron, to LeBron outright, to "Is Steph the new face of the League? Is he
better than LeBron?"
I think people think of Durant as a Tim Duncan type, low-maintenance superstar, but he's much more Kobe than people realized. Seeing dudes like Paul George and Kawhi get moments against LeBron in big games and then some buzz about being "answers" to LeBron probably pissed him off. Meanwhile, the talk about KD and OKC is James Harden is great, OKC **** up not re-signing him and Russell Westbrook and Durant can't figure it out on the court. No one was talking about KD vs. LeBron.
He goes to Golden State, gets his shot at LeBron and beats him twice, and
still no one is having conversations about him vs. LeBron. In fact, he's probably helping build a case for LeBron not just being the best of his generation, but the GOAT, because LeBron just dragged an awful team all the way to the NBA finals and made it the slightest bit competitive (which it really only was in game 1, and I really doubt they win 2 games in that series if they steal that, but JR giving it away probably helped everyone realize how bad his team was, thus building our opinion of LeBron).
So, yes, he does have an ego, and he is being petty, but it's kind of impossible to move on from his decision when the media doesn't let him, especially when he probably thinks they should be talking about him being better than LeBron.
