Durant ignores criticism
Warriors star: Don’t blame me for lack of parity
The noise that surrounds Kevin Durant is growing louder by the minute.
But this isn’t the latest hot take about how the Golden State Warriors star is allegedly arrogant. Nor is this the chorus of nationwide boos relating to the lack of competition in the NBA playoffs, with Durant and his decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder last summer being blamed by so many for this supposedly boring basketball.
This is the sweet sound of joyful children, more than 200 of them spanned across Lincoln Square Park in downtown Oakland where Durant is unveiling four newly refurbished basketball courts on a recent off day. He towers over the youngsters who can’t stop looking at him, all of them giddy as Durant walks his 6-11 frame from hoop to hoop and takes a few casual shots.
The iconic Oakland Tribune tower is in the background. Warriors legend Al Attles, the namesake of these courts, is here, too. A local columnist who grew up on these streets, Marcus Thompson of the Bay Area News Group, received a personal request from Durant to host this event and give it a familiar feel. Durant might have come up in the tough neighborhood of Seat Pleasant, Md., that’s almost 3,000 miles away, but it feels as if he’s one of them.
If you didn’t know the back story, about the millions of fans and some media members who were so enraged when he decided to head this way to play hoops, it would be hard to imagine anyone being angry at this man. And if you think Durant is going to try to control a narrative that has him pegged as a ring-chasing wrecker of all that is good in the NBA, you’re sorely mistaken.
Ask anyone who truly knows Durant, and you hear the same message: The man is in as good a mental place as ever. Truth be told, he worries less about what you think with each passing day.
“I’m just at peace with myself. I’m at peace with myself as a basketball player, most importantly,” Durant told USA TODAY Sports. “I think this move, and the criticism that comes with this move, has made me zero in on what’s the most important thing, and that’s just playing basketball, working out every day, getting better, enjoying every single day as a basketball player. It made me really appreciate that. It made me go back to that. When you listen to the nonsense, then you start to really let it take control of your thoughts, that’s (not good), you know what I’m saying? So I just got back to the game.”
The game had to save him, though. Ten months ago, Durant was paralyzed by the noise he now ignores.
Durant broke his own news, detailing why he was bound for the Bay Area in a Players’ Tribune article that kick-started the chaos. He would laugh weeks later about how he assumed the worst, how he wondered aloud among friends and family if he’d be treated like a modern-day O.J. Simpson or worse, as he said in mid-July, if someone would “just hit me with their car” if he walked outside. But once October hit, when the basketballs started bouncing and he learned little by little that new teammates including Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and all the rest were as genuine as advertised, the noise started to fade.
“I had to get used to the attention,” said Durant, who has averaged 25.2 points, 7.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.2 blocked shots per game as the Warriors became the first team in league history to enter the Finals 12-0 in the playoffs. “I wasn’t used to this much attention, no matter if it was good or bad. I had to get used to that. And once I got used to it, it’s like, ‘All right, let’s roll with it. It’s part of the journey. Let’s just go and play the game. That’s the only thing that matters.’ ”
It helps that Durant, who used to respond to fan criticism on Twitter, has taken the minimalist approach to social media. He deleted his Instagram page and says he checks his Twitter mentions no more than once a month.
YouTube has become his favorite platform. He has his own channel that offers a look at his life on the court and in his home. Like so many elite athletes today, Durant loves having creative control. But as he learned the hard way early, he has no jurisdiction at road arenas, where the noise and negativity know no bounds.
It was one thing to face fiery fans in Oklahoma City, where the Thunder faithful were crushed by his departure and let their voices be heard in two regular-season returns. But a preseason game in Denver? Durant couldn’t comprehend why so many non-Thunder fans acted as if he’d kicked their family dog.
“A kid was behind the bench, and he was like, ‘You sold everybody out! You’re a coward! You’re a (expletive), a (expletive),’ ” he said. “I was just like, ‘Why are you this upset?’ That’s what I was thinking, and that’s why I was talking back. I was like, ‘Why are you so mad again? What’s so important about this that you want to call me all these disrespectful names?’
“That (expletive) doesn’t fly where I’m from, where any one of us are from. If he walked up onto you and said that to you, you would confront him. I’m like, ‘Where is this coming from?’ And then after a while, it just became so normal that it was just, ‘What am I even worried about?’ Because I know it’s not real. ‘Why am I even responding to this?’ ”
Little by little, his teammates noticed the change. “A couple times early on in the year, he’d be jumping back at people in the crowd, folks right behind the bench,” forward David West said. “Then he blocked it out, started focusing on the game, stopped letting it affect him. I mean, it was bad on the road early on. I think once he just got past it, got focused on what we were doing, he just got comfortable.”
Just like he was back in Seat Pleasant, or in his one season at the University of Texas, or in Seattle and Oklahoma City.
“At the core, he’s the same guy,” said Warriors assistant Ron Adams, close with Durant since they spent two seasons in Oklahoma City. “He’s got a lot more going on in his life. He’s had so much success, and the MVP award and all that sort of thing, so he’s busier.
“(But) he’s just really a good human being, and I like how he loves the game . ... I like how he respects the people who played the game in the past, and I like how he respects other players in the league. From a coaching standpoint, that’s so good to see.”
The noise gets tougher to navigate in the playoffs, though, so Durant finds himself fighting that urge again after a recent shootaround in San Antonio. He has heard about the criticism from his news conference the night before. After the Warriors’ Game 3 win in the Western Conference finals, Durant spent a nuance-filled minute answering a question about all the blowouts in this postseason. He offered an opinion from a player’s perspective, expressing an understanding of why fans prefer tight games and capping his comments by saying in a matter-of-fact tone, “If you don’t like it, don’t watch it.”
Cue the simplistic headlines. Start the silly debates. Durant clarified his comments the next day and apologized to fans who were offended. What he won’t do, as he makes clear, is allow anyone to try to peg him as the symbol of the NBA’s parity problem.
“Like I’m the reason why (expletive) Orlando couldn’t make the playoffs for five, six years in a row?” he said. “Am I the reason that Brooklyn gave all their picks to Boston? Like, am I the reason that they’re not that good (laughs)? I can’t play for every team, so the truth of the matter is I left one team . ... I couldn’t have made the (entire) East better. I couldn’t have made everybody (else) in the West better.”
He stops himself. The noise is winning again. Peace, he remembers, must remain the priority.
“I think it’s just something every 28-year-old goes through in different forms with their life,” he explains. “I’m a basketball player, but somebody else might be working in business or might be fresh out of grad school. At different parts of your life, I just feel like there’s a natural progression where you just feel at peace with yourself. Certain stuff that used to bother you really doesn’t bother you anymore. It’s easier for me to kind of speak my mind, speak what I’m thinking, because I now realize that I’m in control of my own destiny.”