Warriors face old friend tonight.
The Nets’ Durant faces the Warriors for the first time since leaving town
There are plenty of reasons to be critical of the NBA, but you can’t do anything but applaud their schedule making for opening night.
What a service the league has done us and itself.
While one game out of (hopefully) 72 regular-season contests doesn’t mean all that much, having Kevin Durant make his Nets debut against the Warriors is a masterstroke of marketing.
The game also provides an opportunity for reflection. Just what did the Durant era in Golden State mean?
How should it be remembered?
It’s been 18 months since Durant left the Bay, and yet it’s fair to still wonder how to feel about his tenure and his exit.
But don’t expect resolution when you see him in another team’s uniform tonight.
The conflicting emotions that will bring about can just be added to the pile of contradictions and paradoxes that Durant created when he began his tenure in Golden State — a pile that we’re collectively yet to organize. Maybe we’ll get around to it after this season. Or maybe not.
Durant refused to provide any guidance to the confused on Monday.
“I feel like each game is important to me,” Durant said, per ESPN. “And it’s no more important to me because I am playing against my old teammates. I just feel like the game of basketball is going to have me on that level anyway and it’s going to be good to see some of my old teammates.”
What are we supposed to do
with that? Is it the truth? A negative projection? All we can say is that it’s just another case of Durant being the most inscrutable man in the NBA.
Yes, he truly is a one- of-a-kind player in every respect.
The contradictions were seemingly endless when it came to No. 35 when he was with the Dubs. The only thing unimpeachable was his brilliance on the court.
There were small things that were difficult to reconcile, like how Durant, a 7-footer, wanted to be listed at 6-foot-9. After all, 7-foot guys can’t do what he does on the basketball court.
Or like how he consumed nearly everything written or said about him by the media, only to then claim that he rarely valued the opinion of anyone outside his inner circle.
And then there were big things, like how Durant was the Warriors’ best player, but he was never the most loved by Warriors fans.
Or how he won the Warriors two titles, but because he was a mercenary amongst homegrown talent, they were never fully ascribed to him.
Or how he was the ultimate citizen in the Bay — his acts of philanthropy were so significant we haven’t even found out about all of them — but then he left without saying goodbye.
Or how he came to the Bay to find validation and recognition as the best player in the NBA, but even when he won those titles and roundly outplayed the man most held that crown — a man who did the same thing on a different coast and then received the same kind of validation — he remained wanting.
Looking back on it through that lens, his time with the Warriors must have been so unfulfilling.
Durant’s desire to be recognized for his greatness — and who amongst us doesn’t need validation? — is the thing that made him a villain in the eyes of so many.
But when arguably the greatest scorer in the history of the NBA finally embraced the villain role during his final 18 months in the Bay, there were few on the outside willing to contradict.
How frustrating that must have been.
Of course, there are other ways to view Durant’s Warriors’ tenure — ways where Durant isn’t a sympathetic figure.
There are more than enough people eager to tell that side of the story.
Looking at the Warriors now, following a 15-win season and entering the 2021 season with so much uncertainty and without a reliable All-Star counterpart for Stephen Curry, there’s no doubt that Durant’s on- court greatness — even if it’s limited by his made everything else that went with it worth the trouble.
But I remember how the entire organization walked on eggshells for the final 18 months of his tenure — especially the final season. How Durant’s inscrutability left Warriors players, coaches, executives, and fans befuddled.
How perfunctory all but a few games a season felt when he was on the court — he was and is a walking cheat code. And how much joy was in the air after Game 6 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, when the Warriors, without Durant, rallied back to beat the rival Rockets in Houston — a performance that led more than a few (all outside the organization) to ridiculously suggest Golden State might be better without KD.
Ultimately, there is no single, empirical reason for why Durant left the Bay. How could there be?
Where the Warriors go from here will likely never come close to where they were. Their best — the highest high perhaps ever reached by any team in modern NBA history — was with No. 35 in blue and gold.
On the other side of the country, Durant has an opportunity in Brooklyn to write a new chapter in his Hall of Fame career — one where he can be the hero that lifts up a down-andout team from the depths.
And you can root for him to do it or not. There’s no right answer.
But that’s the curse of Durant — there never is.