Kevin Durant’s decision to depart the Oklahoma City Thunder to join up with the Golden State Warriors was met with equal parts approval, disdain and disappointment. It marked the end of a brilliant eight-year run in Oklahoma City, a town with only one major professional sports team, which Durant largely aided in establishing. Thunder general manager Sam Presti even aptly referred to Durant as a “founding father” for the organization.
The people who take to KD’s defense primarily do so on the following premise: Kevin Durant is not required to work his entire career with one franchise, just as you are not required to work your entire career with one organization. If the opportunity came for you to work in a more attractive city with more talented co-workers and for the same salary (or more), yet there’s less work and responsibility for you personally, you’d jump at the chance regardless of your profession. And since we live in a world where free agency exists, who are we to look down upon how an athlete chooses to exercise this earned privilege?
Theoretically, that all sounds good, but this is professional sports. And yes, things are different.
We care about where athletes choose to go, when they choose to go and the circumstances around that decision because there is a certain hierarchy to basketball— the one major team sport where we’re allowed and encouraged to place asymmetrical value on an individual player. Once great players pass a certain point, fans, media and the players themselves feel the need to place those players within a historical context. You see this in other team sports, but it’s not nearly as prominent. People talk about the greatest baseball player ever, but the debate seldom rages on like those within basketball. Furthermore, when’s the last time you heard a hardcore debate about the greatest left fielder of all-time? But if you’re a hoops head, chances are you’ve been around a “greatest point guard” debate relatively recently.
Durant should feel privileged to have entered into this complex world of basketball hierarchy. It signifies his status as an upper-echelon player in basketball history, territory very few players venture into. The hierarchy is complicated by its hypocritical nature (a star can join a team that’s good, but not too good) and dense ideas. Yet it’s also a necessary exercise in sorting the good, from the great, from the otherworldly, despite its frustrations.
By leaving the only franchise he’s ever known for a team that just won 73 games and came two minutes away from winning consecutive championships without him, KD sacrificed the long-term spoils for those of the short-term. Players like Barkley, Ewing, Baylor, Iverson and Malone are unable to breakthrough the hierarchy’s glass ceiling because they didn’t win at least one championship. Without one, you can’t even get into the VIP area of the all-time greats. The same holds true for players who win titles as the established second banana, or when the team alpha dog is at least ambiguous. This list includes the likes of Drexler, Robinson, Worthy, McHale, Garnett, Pierce and even six-time champion Scottie Pippen. Kobe Bryant knew this better than anyone, which is partially why he drove a wedge between himself and Shaquille O’Neal.
To avoid the shame (relatively speaking) of the first group, Durant opted to increase his odds of landing in the second, but he did so at the expense of his ticket to an even higher group— winning a title (or titles) as the unquestioned best player on a team.
Sidebar: Some will argue Russell Westbrook was the best player on the Thunder. But given Durant’s four scoring titles, his MVP in 2014 and his one more year of service, history would almost certainly give him the nod over his fiery former teammate.
Like tokens at the arcade, Kevin Durant cashed in his ticket to the super-elite (Russell, Kareem, Magic, Jordan, Thomas, Shaq, Bird, LeBron etc.) for a shot at just getting in the championship club. It’s unclear if he’s the best player on the Warriors, or if he’ll be the leading scorer, and the team was loaded before he ever got there. The Slim Reaper is banking on us forgetting the details of this union 20 years from now, so long as he’s won a ring or two. However, while Golden State will be the favorite entering next year, a championship is far from promised.
And then there was one.
Just a few days ago I wrote the following: “Now more than ever, we tend to gravitate to the new or never before seen; the Warriors fit the bill as a team unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” This isn’t a statement that’s reserved for the dope. It also holds true for those things we hate. The majority of NBA fans (especially those over the age of 30) hate that in times of crisis, superstars are going out of their way to team up with one another. This Warriors super-team will bring a whole new level of pressure and stress that Durant never dealt with in the protective shell that was Oklahoma City. Golden State was one of the most universally loved teams we’d ever come across—now they, and Durant, will embark on a quest for a title that will require them to navigate the choppy waters of hyper-criticism, over-magnification and just plain hatred.
Wearing the black hat ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. LeBron James tried it on in 2011 when he joined Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade in Miami— it didn’t suit him well and the Heat ultimately crumbled under the lofty expectations they in fact created. How will this group of good guys respond to being the NBA’s bad guy? How will the eroded depth of the “Strength in Numbers” Warriors look when they struggle to protect the rim and are short on the bench? What if Durant’s foot acts up again? What about KD’s struggles in this past year’s playoffs? He had at least one garbage performance in every series, including Game 6 against these same Warriors where if he actually played well that night, more than likely none of this ever happens. If he struggled in any way due to the pressure of his impending free agency, how will he handle this move?
Golden State will likely have chemistry growing pains out the gate. Typically, super-teams formed in the past have almost never won in the first year. The 2016 Spurs, 2013 Lakers (if those two count), 2015 Cavs, 2011 Heat and 2004 Lakers all failed to win the title in year one. In recent memory, only the 2008 Celtics won it all on the first go-around, and even they were taken to seven games in each of the first two rounds. History tells us the field is a much better bet to win the 2017 NBA Championship than the Warriors. Sure, Kevin Durant is a gargantuan upgrade over Harrison Barnes, but the hierarchy allowed Barnes to slot nicely in as the fourth or fifth option.
That same hierarchy helped build Kevin Durant into the basketball superstar that netted a giant Nike deal. It made him largely impervious to criticism as the haters rained down on Russell Westbrook for years. Interestingly, the same individuals who believe Westbrook’s on-court antics drove KD to the Bay Area don’t seem to believe playing with Steph Curry will be an issue, despite the fact that Curry’s hoop IQ has recently fallen into question, and Steph will need his own 20 shots a night just like Russ, while operating in the same area of the floor Durant does.
KD is clearly following in LeBron’s footsteps. Beyond controversially changing teams in his prime, Durant partnered with James’ mentor Jay Z three years ago. Hov is the ultimate business maaan— perhaps Jigga’s influence guided this decision to skip town. But Jay Z was also never afraid to bet on himself, something Durant used to not seem so hesitant to do. Ironically, by teaming up with Steph, Klay and Dray, it feels like the new-look Warriors are doing the basketball equivalent of eliminating Andre the Giant (aka LeBron) from the battle royal.
And that’s the shame of it.
The reason the common man work life analogy so many are leaning on to defend Durant falls apart is nobody cares if you’re the greatest construction worker, dental hygienist, marketing exec, or farmer of all-time. There is no hierarchy. When you go to work, 20,000 people aren’t there cheering you on, with millions more watching on television. Nobody is talking about it the next day outside of your office, and you probably don’t get paid $25 million a year. Nothing about your working world and Kevin Durant’s working world is the same. Nothing. Furthermore, most of us aren’t in the top 1% of our profession like Durant is. Therefore, to see a person have a shot at penthouse-level greatness that only a few players could ever dream of and turn it down is discouraging. Kevin Durant will just have to accept that fact and the blowback that accompanies it.
Like LeBron in Cleveland, the payoff of winning one in OKC would’ve been so much greater for Durant. We expected more from him— instead he circumvented competition and disrespected the hierarchy. He’s taking a more active approach in defining his own legacy, while simultaneously undercutting its potential. The beauty of this for him though is we don’t know where his career will end up. At 27, there’s still plenty of time to win one as “the man” definitively, rendering this entire column useless. But until then, we’ll still have YouTube to remind us of times when the OK City Thunder looked like a lock to one day win multiple championships.