Durant pursues joy he didn’t find while a Warrior
Each of the three seasons Kevin Durant was on the Golden State Warriors, he visited Oakland Elizabeth House — a nonprofit that helps mothers who have dealt with domestic violence, addiction or extreme poverty — the week before Christmas.
For about an hour, Durant handed presents to moms and their children, posed for pictures and signed autographs before writing a check to the organization for more than $15,000. These annual stops became one of the year’s biggest highlights for Oakland Elizabeth House — not just because it offered hope to its families, but because Durant’s donations helped keep the organization open.
Durant hasn’t kept in contact with Oakland Elizabeth House’s employees since he signed with the Brooklyn Nets 17 months ago. Unable to hold its usual fundraisers amid the coronavirus pandemic, the nonprofit is being pushed to the financial brink just to purchase the necessities it has given its families for nearly 30 years. But as Oakland Elizabeth House tries to stay operational during uncertain times, the people who came to know Durant during his visits there still view him as a sort of hero.
“When Kevin left, our moms understood that he needed to take care of himself and move on,” Jackie Yancy, Oakland Elizabeth House’s executive director, said of Durant, who will face his former team for the first time when Brooklyn hosts Golden State in Tuesday’s nationally televised season opener. “I haven’t received any type of negative feedback from them that he left. They’re sad that he left but not angry.”
This reaction, more disappointment than outrage, was shared by many throughout the Bay Area. Though Durant won two NBA titles and two Finals MVP awards with the Warriors, he never became part of the team’s fabric in the same way as Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson or Draymond Green.
Given that Durant long felt more like a mercenary than a franchise cornerstone, his exit from the Warriors didn’t warrant the vitriolic response he received from Thunder fans when he left Oklahoma City in 2016. Many inside Golden State’s organization were somewhat relieved when Durant finally signed with the Nets. For more than a year, he had complained that the franchise didn’t value him as much as Curry.
As Durant prepares to make his regular-season debut with his new team after a season-long rehab from a torn Achilles tendon he suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals, he seldom talks to anyone from the Warriors. In his three years with Golden State, he didn’t become close enough with teammates or coaches to build lasting bonds.
Durant’s decision to stop donating to Oakland Elizabeth House after he left the Bay Area only reinforces the tenuous relationship he had with his old city. Though he sought out a good cause to support during his Warriors stint, he didn’t necessarily feel as connected to anyone in Oakland — nonprofits included — as he did to similar groups in Oklahoma City.
In summer 2016, when Durant left the Thunder after eight seasons to sign with Golden State, he reached out to Positive Tomorrows — an Oklahoma City school for homeless children he backed — to ask how he could continue to help. Informed that another local foundation would donate $50,000 if the school could raise $57,000, Durant wrote Positive Tomorrows a $57,000 check so the school could buy land for a large enough facility to double enrollment.
It didn’t matter to him that much of Oklahoma was livid that he left the franchise that drafted him to join the team that had just ousted the Thunder from the playoffs. In Oklahoma City, Durant had gone from a meek 20-yearold trying to establish himself in the NBA to a 27-year-old future Hall of Famer. Along the way, he came to embody the principles — hard work, modesty, loyalty — Oklahomans value most.
In 2013, after a tornado killed 24 and injured 377 in the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore, he donated $1 million to the relief effort and was visibly shaken as he met families whose homes lay in ruins only feet away. Less than three years later, Durant joined the likes of Will Rogers and Woody Guthrie in the Oklahoma Hall of Fame.
“Oklahoma City is my home. I grew up there,” Durant told ESPN in 2017. “They felt that attachment to me, because they’ve seen me grow up. ... So, I understand.”
That deep of a bond wasn’t possible with the Warriors or their fan base. By the time Durant signed with Golden State, the franchise had already ridden Curry, Thompson and Green to the team’s first title in 40 years. Durant’s decision to join the Warriors was criticized as the easy route to his first career championship.
After winning the title in 2017 with Durant earning NBA Finals MVP, he became sullen around teammates as speculation about his future intensified. He complained to friends about how coach Steve Kerr treated Curry, Thompson and Green differently than him.
His thinking became so negative in his last months with Golden State that no amount of praise could make him believe he was being treated fairly. Now set to pursue a title with close friend Kyrie Irving on the Nets, Durant is still chasing the validation he has long felt he deserves.