The Golden State Warriors won two titles thanks in large part to Kevin Durant. He joined the team and made them a nearly unstoppable juggernaut for three seasons in the late 2010s, but his recent comments and actions have all seemingly been a rejection of his time with the franchise.
First there were his comments about his former Warriors teammate Klay Thompson. He disparaged Thompson while making a bizarre comparison between the Warriors teams he was on and the current iteration of the Philadelphia 76ers.
He then made comments suggesting that the Brooklyn Nets team he joined after his time in the Bay, a team that featured Kyrie Irving and James Harden, was better on paper than the Warriors team he joined.
It’s unclear what his motivation is for these comments. Is he trying to rewrite history to make his decision to join Golden State seem less like ring-chasing? If so, he’s not really fooling anyone. The Warriors didn’t even need Durant to be one of the best teams in the NBA. He gave them an unfair advantage while since being unable to single-handedly elevate any of his other teams to the same heights the Warriors reached.
Perhaps he’s just trolling or trying to create drama or controversy where there is none. For a guy who famously makes burner accounts to argue with people on social media, that wouldn’t come as any sort of surprise.
Kevin Durant might be ashamed of his Warriors legacy
But all he is really doing is tearing down his Warriors legacy. Had he just let things be and not felt the need to relitigate the past, he’d likely be warmly thought of by many Warriors fans for his contributions to those two championships.
Now, he has a strange standing with Golden State fans. Most view him as a hired gun who simply wanted to cash in on the team’s greatness. He’s undoubtedly a great player, but he will always be thought of as separate from the core trio of Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson.
Maybe that fact drives him crazy. He already knows at this point in his career he likely won’t be able to change the narrative surrounding him unless he can somehow lead a team to a title, something that seems unlikely as his career goes on. He will always be thought of as a gifted player and a great scorer, but there will likely always be an asterisk next to those two rings he won with the Warriors.
The fact that the Warriors won a title after Durant left just further serves the argument that they didn’t necessarily need him to win another ring. He certainly helped and played great, but odds are they would have been in the Finals even without him.
That fact must drive him crazy which is why it seems like he doesn’t care how his Warriors legacy gets remembered, and might be why he's clearly trying to distance himself from it at this point.
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