KD, great power comes with great responsibility

Episode with Rapaport is opposite of ‘New York tough’

Kevin Durant is one of the most talented players in NBA history, and a former NBA champion, and changed things for the Brooklyn Nets, began turning them into what they are right now, by deciding to come play basketball for them. You saw how it happened. He becomes a Net and Kyrie Irving becomes a Net and then James Harden, he wants to get out of Houston and come to the big city and play with the cool kids. And now here they all are.

But Kevin Durant wasn’t cool when he got into a vile Twitter fight with actor Michael Rapaport that eventually got him fined $50,000 by his league. The amount of money doesn’t matter, of course. It is tipping money to someone who makes what Durant makes. But the fact of things is that Durant got fined for acting like an idiot, and he didn’t help himself with one of those sports apologies that isn’t an apology at all.

“I’m sorry that people seen the language I used,” Durant said. “That’s not really what I want people to see and hear from me, but hopefully I can move past it and get back out there on the floor.”

Huh?

It is an apology made out of nonsense. But at least this week everybody knew Durant was still in town. He missed all of last season because of the Achilles injury suffered in his last NBA Finals with the Warriors. Now he has missed most of this season with a hamstring injury that has caused him to miss his team’s last 21 games. When he plays, he is still a wonder, averaging 29 points and seven rebounds and showing a rather unique skill set for someone his size. He just doesn’t play much these days.

But what is more of a wonder is that he could continue to get into this kind of childish, meathead, offensive Twitter exchange because somebody hurt his feelings. Seriously? At least he’s right about one thing: He can’t want people to see and hear him acting that way. It still would have been a stand-up thing for him to apologize for what he said to Rapaport, and not that people saw what he said.

Listen, the hope is that he gets completely healthy and he and Harden and Irving play together as well as the great old Knick championship teams play together, and the Nets become the first New York City team since the old Knicks of 1972-73 to bring an NBA title here. In the process, they could go down as one of the most talented New York sports teams of any kind to win a championship. And, let’s face it, we sure could use one around here.

Maybe the Nets will win and win so big that nobody will remember in June what Durant said to Rapaport on social media to get himself fined. Or maybe there will be a different ending this season for him and his team and Durant will make you wonder how he can ever flourish here with rabbit ears.

You can go find the anti-gay and misogynistic things he said to Rapaport, they’re easily found if you don’t mind losing IQ points reading them. The whole exchange really did sound dumber than the dumbest argument at the end of a bar at closing time. Now Durant says he wants to move past all that. Well, so would you and so would I. The problem in the end was that his apology truly was as weak as the original comments from Durant, softer than soft ice cream.

Which he is not. Everybody thought he only went to Golden State for easy rings and then when he got there, he was a superb teammate to

Steph Curry and elevated his team, and would have likely won another title with Steph if he hadn’t suffered that catastrophic injury against the Raptors. Then he became a free agent, and there was the time when we all thought he was going to sign on with the Knicks. He signed on with the Nets instead. He was going to establish a new legacy for himself, and he was going to do it in Brooklyn, on the great New York City stage. And prove that there was more than one basketball stage worth talking about in this city.

But as talented as he is and as