Kevin Durant has been an easy target since he joined the Golden State Warriors, but maybe it’s time to give him a break.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know that Kevin Durant and the media have been clashing against each other lately. Ever since he announced his decision to join the Golden State Warriors in the Summer of 2016, Durant has been under heavy fire from fans and the media.
Now, it is fair to note, scrutiny from the media is something that every superstar player has to go through. It’s just something that comes with the territory. Furthermore, a majority of the noise against Durant has come from different fan bases and not the actual media itself. In fact, most of the reporters have been rather tame when interviewing Durant.
Despite this, Durant has continued to have unpleasant press conferences resulting in verbal conflict. In the most recent case of this, Durant stood up and left the conference due to a question that he felt was unnecessary.
Now, even though many fans like to paint KD as a sensitive person, this is far from being true. Sure, it’s reasonable to say that Durant could handle certain situations better, but the truth is, Durant is just unapologetically himself.
That is why, when the media continues to twist his words and create rumors about him, Durant takes it personally. I don’t think anyone would like to wake up and see that a reporter they have never even talked to has broken a story about them.
For Durant, he feels like every question he is asked is a reporters attempt at getting an attention-grabbing headline for their newest article. It is clear he doesn’t trust any reporter and they haven’t given him any reason to do so.
Furthermore, it is obvious that Durant is not going to talk about his upcoming free agency until the Summer, so why do reporters continue to barrage him with questions about his free agency? If I was Durant, I would walk away from press conferences too.
As Durant said himself, all he wants to do is play basketball and go home. He has been one of the best players in the league for almost a decade now. Why isn’t that enough? Why does Durant have to answer countless questions about things he doesn’t want to talk about?
Like I said earlier, this type of pressure is simply something that comes with Durant’s status in the NBA. So, while Durant obviously needs to learn better methods of handling these situations, maybe the media should give him a break as well.