The Golden State Warriors were desperate last season to find an offensive co-star for Stephen Curry. At one point they were close to trading for Kevin Durant, only for the former Warrior to kibosh the trade. A new Netflix documentary sheds light on why KD stopped the reunion -- because of the baggage he still carried from his time in San Francisco.
Starting 5 was an instant hit on Netflix, a documentary that followed five NBA stars through the season. The new season chose Kevin Durant as one of its subjects, and he was unsurprisingly willing to talk about anything and everything, including his relationship with the Warriors.
The Phoenix Suns were in a terrible place by the middle of last season. A hot start had disintegrated into a disastrous year that would ultimately end in the Suns missing the Western Conference Play-In Tournament entirely. The grand experiment of Durant, Devin Booker and Bradley Beal went nowhere, and the Suns were prohibitively expensive and losing games in droves.
Trading Durant, still one of the 20 best players in the league at his age and an elite scorer and shooter, made a lot of sense. Teams were calling to offer the Suns trade packages that would allow them to either retool and continue competing, or to start a reset entirely and take picks and prospects.
One such team that got deep into the trade process were the Warriors. They were on the hunt for a star and they knew better than anyone how well Durant fit on-the-court with Stephen Curry and Draymond Green. Curry and Durant had just teamed up with LeBron James to lead Team USA to a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
Kevin Durant shut down a trade to the Warriors
Suddenly talks ended, and it was reported that the reason was Durant telling the Suns he didn't want to be traded to the Warriors. Suddenly rumors were flying: did Durant still have beef with Draymond? Did he and Steve Kerr not see eye to eye? What was the reason?
The halfway reason floated at the time was that Durant didn't want to be traded at midseason, and ultimately that rang true to a level as ther Suns stopped shopping him. The Warriors pivoted to Jimmy Butler and went on a tear down the stretch of the season and into the playoffs. This summer Durant was traded to the Houston Rockets.
In the Netflix documentary, Durant opens up about that trade and why he put an end to it. He relayed that he told the Suns "anywhere but the Warriors." He didn't want to revisit those storylines. He didn't want them to gut their team trading for him and then he and Steph couldn't do anything with the team that was left. He didn't want to be traded anyway, but especially not to the Warriors.
He told the Warriors and Steph that it wasn't the right time or the right fit, and that shut down the deal.
It's hard to blame Durant for not wanting to fire up the baggage of his time there. Even as he was winning two titles with the Warriors, he was maligned for joining a superteam instead of trying to win on his own. Charles Barkley is still barking about how Durant "rode the bus" to two championships; he didn't drive it himself. And that final year, he and Draymond were fighting, and ultimately Durant tore his Achilles during the NBA Finals in a truly agonizing moment.
Kevin Durant hit the highest of heights and some very real lows while on the Warriors. He decided dredging all of that back up was not something he was ready for. This year will help decide if that decision was the right one.