Peterson: More advice for Durant.
Reggie Miller recently gave some advice to the Warriors’ Kevin Durant.
Durant isn’t going to like it, given that Miller invoked a certain 6-letter word. That’s right: “Knicks.”
Durant has expressed his exasperation over the fanciful buzz that has him leaving the Warriors for the Knicks next summer. The subject is so irksome to KD that he iced reporters for more than a week, and then, when he finally sat down with them, asked them to kindly “grow up.”
There’s something amusing about a 7-foot man telling other adults to “grow up.” But I digress.
Miller charged into the discussion in a conversation with the New York Daily News.
“If he has a couple bad games in New York — under that microscope — he’s really going to be upset,” said Miller, currently a TNT analyst. “You have to factor in everything when you’re considering joining the New York Knicks, the No. 1 media market in the world and in our game.”
Without actually saying it, Miller invoked the S-word: “Sensitive.” It wouldn’t be the first time that word has been attached to Durant.
“You’re upset with the media when you’re the back-toback NBA champions and you’re the back-to-back (Finals) MVP and you think the kitchen is hot now? If you’re joining the Knicks, there’s expectations that follow that. There’s a lot that comes with that.”
To be abundantly clear, Durant has not indicated what his intentions are come this summer’s free-agency signing period.
But as he thinks his way through the process, he might want to consider clipping this list and taping it to his refrigerator:
Five reasons he should heed Miller’s advice.
Knicks fans aren’t shy about letting you know what they think. It’s an attitude that dates back at least 30 years.
1 >> In the spring of 1989, the Knicks were locked in a secondround playoff series against the Michael Jordan-led Bulls. Future Warriors coach Mark Jackson was the Knicks’ point guard. He struggled (5-of-13 shooting, 0-for-2 on 3s) in Game 1, an overtime loss at Madison Square Garden. When Knicks coach Rick Pitino sent Jackson into Game 2, Knicks fans let him have it.
“I’ve been listening to the talk shows lately,” Pitino told Newsday after the game, a 17-point win. “I’m uncomfortable with fans booing Mark Jackson.”
Later that month, Pitino left the Knicks for the University of Kentucky.
2 >> Coach Pat Riley’s divorce from the Knicks after the 1994-95 season was messy, and it was nasty. Leaning on the latest in electronic communications, Riley — despite having a year left on his contract — abruptly faxed his resignation from a Malibu hotel. Come the following season, Riley was coaching the Miami Heat. Six days before Christmas, Riley and the Heat made their first visit to New York of the 1995-96 season.
The boos were “deafening,” according to accounts of the game. There also were some clever signs: “Benedict Riley,” “Greetings$ Pat,” and “Send them a fax, Pat.”
3 >> Tim Hardaway Jr. was merely a promising shooting guard his first four seasons in the NBA. Then in the summer of 2017, the Knicks offered him a four-year, $71 million contract, far beyond contracts offered to comparable players at the time. Businessinsider.com called the transaction a “monstrosity” and “one of the biggest and strangest splashes of NBA free agency.”
Even though Knicks management committed the lapse of judgment, it was Hardaway who took much of the heat.
“I have to use (the criticism) as motivation,” Hardaway told slamonline.com four months after he signed the deal. “I take it that those are your fans and they’re coming at you with that. It hurts.”
4>> In August, seemingly out of nowhere, Hall of Fame Knicks guard Walt Frazier besmirched Durant’s legacy — much of which is yet to be written.
Among other things, Frazier said he thought less of Durant “because, man, he joined a team that really didn’t need him. There will be an asterisk next to his name.”
5>> Two months ago, Knicks owner James Dolan, who inherited the team from his father in 1999 and who has hinted he might be ready to sell, complained he was “sick of being berated by fans.” Below is yet another classic Daily News back page.
Finally: We promised a big reason for Durant to dismiss Miller’s admonition. It is this: Miller has already checked in with an errant take regarding Durant’s career path.
It happened right after Durant signed with the Warriors. Miller wrote an article published in bleacherreport. com. The headline: “Kevin Durant Traded a Sacred Legacy for Cheap Jewelry.”
“The gravity of Kevin Durant’s decision to join the Golden State Warriors hit me when a friend texted me, saying, ‘KD is crazy,’” Miller began.
“At the end of the day, what’s more important, rings or legacy? The media only cares about rings, and rightfully so. We are judged on jewelry, so that’s why I can’t argue with it. From a personal standpoint, I’m upset that a small market will never recover from it.”
Later in the piece, Miller concedes, “Not winning a championship burns me to this day.” He writes that he stayed in Indiana for 18 years because he wanted to put Indiana on the map and he wanted to do whatever the Pacers could do among friends, neighbors, “your checkout teller at the grocery store, the ushers, the waiters. We were all in it together.”
Nothing wrong with that. Likewise, Durant committed no breech of alpha athlete etiquette when he came to the Warriors from the Oklahoma City Thunder.
As for his sacred legacy: He has two rings and two Finals MVPs. He has improved across the board — defense, assists, his skills as a facilitator. He may one day be regarded as the best offensive player in NBA history. It’s possible he will wind up with the most points.
Reggie Miller is in the Hall of Fame for a reason. But if I were Kevin Durant, I wouldn’t approach him for career guidance.