If you were to poll sports journalists, NBA players, general managers and coaches who is the best basketball player in the world right now then it would likely be split amongst LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant.
But LeBron James is getting up there in age so it’s only a matter of time before his skills start to diminish, Kawhi Leonard keeps to himself because he’s incredibly mild-mannered and Kevin Durant, well, has become somewhat of a jerk.
And a new profile article from the Wall Street Journal on Kevin Durant went viral, definitely exacerbating his role as the NBA’s biggest villain.
Some athletes are just entirely too arrogant and self-righteous for their own good.
A new Wall Street Journal article took the sports world by storm on Tuesday that was effectively a profile on now Brooklyn Nets forward Kevin Durant.
The article opens with an audacious comment from the two-time Finals MVP where he says, “Some days I hate the NBA.”
It becomes clear in the article that Kevin Durant doesn’t care what you or anybody else thinks about him – and even expresses disdain towards Oklahoma City and his former teammates and coaches at Golden State.
Durant wants Wall Street Journal writer J.R. Moehringer to believe that he’s hard; that what his critics say doesn’t bother him at all. But that’s not true. Kevin Durant was notorious for creating fake burner accounts on Twitter so he could defend himself towards those that criticized his decision to leave the OKC Thunder for the Golden State Warriors.
Make no mistake; he’s a sensitive dude. The aforementioned should be all you need to know about the type of person he is; even being one of the most famous athletes in the world, he’s still concerned about his critical reception.
It wasn’t long ago when Durant was considered to be one of the most likable NBA players. After winning the NBA’s MVP in 2014, everyone’s heart melted when he emotionally told his Mom that she was “the real MVP.” Durant won Mother’s Day that year.
But it was something that happened right after that speech that led to Durant lashing out at sports media and fans, which was oddly glossed over in the profile as if it wasn’t that important.
Durant had a very private falling out with the same woman who he just called “the real MVP,” obviously, his Mother. Durant’s mother was always in control of his finances, but he ended up shifting it to Jay-Z’s Roc Nation instead. This apparently caused some serious tension between the two.
And when you really think about it; this makes a lot of sense as to why Durant became a lovable personality to one of the most volatile emotional players in the NBA.
But ultimately the tone of the article is that Durant is burning bridges and he really doesn’t care what anybody thinks.
Durant blasted his old teammates and coaches at Golden State and OKC. He also despises the people of Oklahoma City too.
When asked about how he would fit into the Golden State Durant said it was always “Kevin Durant and Golden State,” and then makes a point about the Warriors hitting a ceiling saying, “The motion offense we run in Golden State, it only works to a certain point. We can totally rely on only our system for maybe the first two rounds. Then the next two rounds we’re going to have to mix in individual play. We’ve got to throw teams off, because they’re smarter in that round of playoffs. So now I had to dive into my bag, deep, to create stuff on my own, off the dribble, isos, pick-and-rolls, more so than let the offense create my points for me.”
That’s pretty much a God complex. It’s also obnoxiously ungrateful, not only towards his teammates and coaches, but to the entire city that embraced him after he left Oklahoma City.
On his first game back to OKC in February 2017, arguably the most publicized game since his return, Durant said it was “such a venomous toxic feeling when I walked into that arena. And just the organization, the trainers and equipment managers, those dudes is pissed off at me? Ain’t talking to me? I’m like, Yo, this is where we going with this? Because I left a team and went to play with another team?”
To be fair, it is absurd for fans to have a malicious reaction. It’s only a game. On Monday night, Raiders fans chanted “F—k [Antonio Brown]” because of his recent fiasco leaving the team for the New England Patriots. Not only were they not playing the Patriots, Antonio Brown wasn’t even there. Who are they booing at?
Durant also said of Oklahoma City, “I’ll never be attached to that city again because of that. I eventually wanted to come back to that city and be part of that community and organization, but I don’t trust nobody there. That shit must have been fake, what they was doing. The organization, the GM, I ain’t talked to none of those people, even had a nice exchange with those people, since I left.”
The Brooklyn Net player is rehabbing his Achilles injury right now and its unclear whether he’ll even play this upcoming season but clearly he still thinks of himself as miles better than even LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard. And that is not a likable quality to have such disrespect towards others games.
