Durant Takes a Shot at Former Team, OKC

Kevin Durant threw a haymaker at his former team.

Durant told reporters how different it is to play in Golden State versus his former team, the Oklahoma City Thunder.

“There’s a lot I need to learn about the game of basketball,” Durant told reporters this week. “I’m not as smart as I thought I was about the game. It’s played a different way here then I was used to playing. It’s not a knock on Oklahoma City,” Durant said. “It’s not a knock on my past teammates or that organization. … I mean it’s different here. It’s fun here. It’s fun playing where I was before but that book is closed.”

Stephen A. Smith on First Take ripped Durant, and LZ Granderson on SportsNation said Durant undercut OKC. Others have either sided with Smith and Granderson, while there are those who have said the opposite.

Let’s be clear: Durant put his foot in his mouth. And, he shot himself in the foot. Anytime somebody comes out and says “it’s not a knock on Oklahoma City,” or anything in that context, it usually means that he or she is revving up for the opposite of what they tried to protect and sugarcoat.

However, though Durant seems like an exceptional guy, the fact still remains in the way he left OKC. By not telling anyone beforehand, face-to-face, before he joined GS, it makes joining a 73-win team that just beat your former team in the playoffs last year that much more egregious.

But, hey, the way Durant answered the question makes one ponder if he really didn’t think about how he would answer such a question. It really comes off as undermining his former franchise, an organization he engineered relationships with, especially with one Russell Westbrook.

The game last night—Warriors and the Clippers—was very boring. The reason why the chemistry works so well—even though Durant literally just arrived over the summer—is that he can flat out shoot.

Durant is a career 38 percent three-point shooter; the dubs are the greatest shooting team of all-time because of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. Durant is a 7-foot player who—in the words of Stephen A. Smith—can pull up from 30. And, he can handle. It’s unfair; so of course it’s going to work.

The only question is if the Dubs can outplay the elite teams in the west—and of course—the team that beat them in the finals last year: the Cleveland Cavaliers.

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