Dissecting The Animosity Toward The Warriors And Kevin Durant
Since Independence Day last summer, Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors were presumed to be the villains all throughout their run to the title. But is all the hate even warranted?
The main source of sports knowledge for most people is from social media, television channels such as ESPN and Fox Sports, and online sports columns. Throughout this season, especially at its end, these numerous outlets have pushed a narrative that the Golden State Warriors, and in particular, Kevin Durant, epitomize what’s wrong with the state of the NBA and even basketball in general.
Golden State has gotten endless criticism. Seemingly everyone is of the opinion, that for some reason, their championship should mean less because of the “unfair” way they achieved it.
As a fan of the team, I was originally angry. But as the season waned, I understood more and more why people dislike the Warriors to such an extent. Part of it was due to the fact that there really wasn’t much to talk about after all the MVP candidates were eliminated. The playoffs were considered boring with all the blowouts and sweeps, and hurt fans of losing teams began spewing their opinions. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the course of my NBA fandom, it’s that people love to hate on greatness in the moment.
But this seems entirely different than what most great teams usually receive. It has been more than hate. People hated Stephen Curry last year for his celebratory approach to the game and different style of play. People hated Russell Westbrook this year because it looked like he tried to do to much. People hated Kobe Bryant back in his day for his brashness and arrogance. But people did this while simultaneously respecting the players’ incredible achievements.
The difference? Everything Kevin Durant and the Warriors do is an indictment on them. KD plays well; he’s weak for joining that team. He plays poorly; he’s overrated and soft. The Warriors lose; they’re huge chokers. They win; it’s written off because “they’re supposed to.” They can’t win.
The Warriors Are Not Villains
Around the nation, the Warriors have become the bad guys, which is fathomable. They did, in fact, add a superstar to an already great team, which is likely frustrating for opposing fans who want a chance to win a championship. But to hear others discuss it, it’s as if they cheated the game somehow, so nothing they do is worth merit.
Their greatness is resented due to their seemingly meteoric rise and the amount of star players they have on their team. And since they added the second best player in the league to their 73-win team, the 2017 championship is therefore illegitimate.
The problem with that sentiment is they did absolutely nothing wrong. You can’t blame Bob Meyers and the Warriors organization for simply attempting to become the best team they can be.
If LeBron James was a free agent right now and the Warriors had the cap space to sign him, you best believe they will try as hard as they can to do so. James said himself that if he became an owner, he would “try to sign everybody.” Competitive balance be damned if you’re on the cusp of becoming the greatest team in NBA history.
And the idea that the Warriors title was “bought not built” is complete foolishness. The Warriors actually ranked 14th in the NBA for their total payroll this year. Cleveland, for reference, ranked first. The salary cap more than allowed them to accomplish this. Besides that, Golden State drafted all of their key pieces and added a few external pieces. If you observe every other historical team, they used a similar formula.
1980s Lakers: Drafted Magic Johnson, James Worthy, Byron Scott. External piece: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1980s Celtics: Drafted Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Danny Ainge. External pieces: Dennis Johnson and Robert Parish
1990s Bulls: Drafted Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc. External piece: Dennis Rodman
The fact of the matter is the Warriors did nothing that any other great team hadn’t already done. In some cases, other teams such as the late 2000s Boston Celtics and the early 2010s Miami Heat, added a majority of their key pieces externally.
Can you really be mad at the Warriors for drafting well and using their recruiting skills to add another external piece? It’s every single one of your favorite team’s way to create a dynasty. Perhaps, it’s just because they did it better than everyone else.
Kevin Durant’s Game Shouldn’t Be Forgotten
I know that’s not the real issue, though. Most fans outside of Cleveland aren’t angry at Bob Myers for hoarding superstars, but rather, one Kevin Durant for joining them. By leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder, he’s established himself as a non-competitor, a fraud, a fake tough guy and a man who takes the easiest route for everything instead of embracing the struggle that it takes to win.
While I may disagree, that is fair criticism in some respects. Durant has never shown to be a true leader. He isn’t a clear-cut alpha dog, and his mentality isn’t what’s typical of what fans think NBA legends are supposed to be. He’s never really carried his team to anything, so to the LeBron, Jordan, and Kobe lovers, he could never be in their class due to the nature in which his championships came, and how he carries himself on the court.
However, why should that take away from his game? Why must we use it against him when judging Kevin Durant the player? It doesn’t change the fact that his production and his accomplishments put him at least in the conversation with about 99 percent of NBA players in the history of the game. The reason that the move was considered unfair in the first place was because of Durant’s insane skill level and unbelievable work ethic. Players ring chase all the time. David West, Mitch Richmond, and virtually the entire Cleveland bench did it, and we don’t punish their careers for it. Why must we punish him for being great?
And he’s definitely great. He’s absolutely, positively, no questions asked, legendary. You cannot name 15 more talented basketball players to ever walk this Earth. It’d be a stretch to name ten. I myself can barely name five. He’s that good. And he’s proven he’s much more than just talent. He’s clutch, committed and unselfish. Durant excels at every facet of the game, and it’s beautiful to see how his overall game has manifested even more since the decision to migrate to the Bay Area.
Durant’s Extraordinary Performance In The Finals
Durant’s statistics speak for themselves. In the five games of the 2017 Finals, he averaged 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.6 blocks per game. His shooting percentages were eye-popping — he shot 56 percent from the field, 47% percent from three and 93 percent from the free-throw line. And his true shooting was 70 percent! It was an utterly incomprehensible performance, and if you go by statistics alone, it’s tough to find a Finals performance that tops this one. 35 points on almost 50–50–90? Unbelievable. It’s as if he’s Kobe Bryant and Steph Curry at their best, combined.
And this wasn’t just a one series phenomenon. He’s been doing this his entire career. By using career per 100 possessions statistics, this man may be the greatest scorer in the history of the game. Here are the only players (post 1973) that have averaged 35 plus points per 100 possessions. Durant is the only player to have a True Shooting Percentage north of 60 percent.
His combination of volume and efficiency is unparalleled, as is his game itself. A 6-foot-11 ball-handling wizard with quickness, length, and jumping ability like his is unheard of, and he’s taken full advantage of those tools to become an unstoppable scoring machine.
In the 10 Finals games he’s played in, the least amount of points he’s scored is 25. This year, the least he scored was 31. Just think about that for a second, and then tell me he’s not deserving of all he’s accomplished.
I could continue raving about his statistical achievements, but it would essentially be beating a dead horse. The sad thing is, we know all this. We all know how good he is, and we’ve known for practically a decade now. So why is it that everywhere I see statements such as “KD can never be a top 10 player because of this move,” or “this move destroyed KD’s legacy?” As I had implied earlier, one’s legacy shouldn’t be determined by a judge of character, but rather all that he accomplished on the court.
Why KD Is Not “Weak” And Did Not “Look For The Easy Way Out”
First of all, Durant would’ve been hard-pressed to stay with the Thunder after all that happened over the course of his nine years there. Oklahoma City’s incompetent front office made mistake after mistake during his time there, so how exactly was he supposed to believe they were going to put a team around him good enough to win a title? They signed an aging Kendrick Perkins for far too much money in 2011, traded away a future MVP candidate in James Harden because they were afraid to pay the luxury tax and held onto Scott Brooks far too long when his offensive concepts clearly weren’t working for them. Honestly, the Thunder should be having the dynasty Golden State is currently enjoying, if they hadn’t wasted the talent they had drafted.
As much as everyone hates to admit it, Durant likely would’ve never won with Russell Westbrook the way he is now as their starting point guard. People forget that in those last three games against the Warriors in 2016, Westbrook deserved equal, if not more, blame than Durant for their 3–1 collapse. In Games 5–7, he averaged five turnovers and shot a combined 37 percent from the field. Moreover, in that fateful Game 6, Westbrook had four crucial turnovers in the last two minutes. I’m not saying they never could’ve won it, or that Westbrook isn’t a great player, but it’s tough to envision winning with an inefficient, turnover-prone, ball-dominating point guard who isn’t the most clutch player.
Second, relegating this championship to pedestrian status simply because of the amount of star players the Warriors have, is really undermining all the necessary intangible components that it takes to win a championship in the NBA. As Phil Jackson said himself in his book Eleven Rings, it takes a combination of “talent, creativity, intelligence, toughness, and, of course, luck” to win an NBA title. Chalking it up to “anyone could win a title with four All-stars” is insinuating that Golden State has none of these championship qualities other than talent, which is disrespectful to their coaching, selflessness and heart.
The belief that one can just collect a group of stars and win a title the first year is an illusion. A championship is never a guarantee. “Super teams” have failed plenty of times.
The 2004 LA Lakers with four Hall-of-Famers in Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Karl Malone and Gary Payton failed to win the championship. The Lakers again in 2012 with Kobe, Pau Gasol, Dwight Howard and Steve Nash failed to make it out of the first round. The Brooklyn Nets, with Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce, Deron Williams and Joe Johnson failed to make it out of the second.
Adding a superstar is never that easy. It takes time for guys who usually have the ball in their hands all the time to adjust and still be effective on the court. The Miami Heat with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh couldn’t win the first year they were together because they were still figuring out those issues. Don’t let Golden State making it look easy fool you into thinking it is easy. Remember: earlier in the year, the narrative was that adding Durant and letting go of a lot of their bench would make the Warriors worse.
While we’re on the subject of the Miami Heat, let’s compare two of the largest free agent decisions: LeBron James to the Heat in 2010, and Durant to the Warriors. I’m sure we’ve all heard the differences, so let’s look at the similarities. James and Durant were both on teams with a poor front office and players they felt they couldn’t win a championship with. Both players also prioritized championships over being loyal, and they went to play on a better team with better players to better showcase their talents and win a title.
KD was not in an ideal situation, and he went to the best place for him. Simple as that. I understand it looks bad that he went to the team that had just scraped past him in the previous Western Conference Finals, but that’s all it should be. A bad look and nothing more. There’s no evidence of him “throwing the series” against the Warriors when he was up 3–1 because then, why would they have gone up 3–1 in the first place?
And yes, the Thunder definitely could’ve beaten the Warriors in 2016. But an argument can be made that it took:
A) The worst series of Draymond Green’s career
B) A hampered Stephen Curry
C) The best series of Steven Adams, Serge Ibaka, and Andre Roberson’s career to even take Golden State to seven before they figured out the coverage the Thunder had thrown at them. Oklahoma City wasn’t truly better than that team over the course of the season. The Warriors were deeper, and they played the way he had always wanted to play.
Revisiting Durant’s Options In 2016 NBA Free Agency
For the record, exactly where else could he have gone? The Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks are dysfunctional lottery teams, the Washington Wizards finished 10th in the East the year prior, and the Boston Celtics were fresh off a first round exit and no one knew Isaiah Thomas was that good at all. If he had gone to the Spurs, according to most, that would’ve been a weak move as well, since he went to the team that beat him in the 2014 Western Conference Finals.
If we go back to late June, which is when free agency was at its peak, everyone knew the primary options for Durant were either to head to Oakland or to stay in OKC. He chose to go to the Warriors not because of the amount of talent they had, but because of the culture, teamwork, and the way they play together. He was tired of dribbling for 20 seconds on the shot clock trying to create his own shot, when Westbrook couldn’t do the same. He wanted to play in a style in which he could move without the ball and play with pace and in space. Frankly, he just wanted to enjoy basketball more.
The talent certainly helped, but if the Warriors had JJ Redick instead of Klay Thompson, and Paul Millsap instead of Draymond Green, Durant still would’ve chosen that team because of their camaraderie, teamwork and playing style. Stephen Curry is really the only one who’s irreplaceable in terms of talent. Maybe they wouldn’t have went 16–1 without Green and Thompson, but Durant still would’ve enjoyed the atmosphere just as much. It wasn’t about the amount of talent they had; it was about the guys themselves as people, and the way they play together.
We all know the Warriors needed Durant to win this championship. They’ve historically been a bad match-up for Cleveland in the past few years. They rough up Stephen Curry off the ball, and when Klay and Draymond aren’t hitting, it’s tough for them to create offense at times. With Durant, all that changed. Any time the Warriors needed a bucket, they went to him, and he created a good shot with ease. He was also another guy to throw at LeBron, and time and time again, he delivered in crunch time. His game-winner in Game 3 was the defining moment of his career, and it should be embedded in Finals history.
Kyrie Irving played better in this year’s Finals than in last year’s. LeBron James played better in this year’s Finals than in last year’s. And yet, instead of winning in seven games, the Cavaliers lost in five. That’s how big of a difference Durant is.
Fans of the game should clear the dirt off the lenses of their glasses and see the Warriors for who they truly are, and Kevin Durant for who he truly is. The Warriors are a legitimate contender for the greatest team of all time, and Durant is a fantastic basketball savant who could easily become a top 10 player in NBA history. You can be annoyed at them, talk trash about them, or dislike them, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. Lord knows I love hating on LeBron James out of pure pettiness. But don’t let that cloud your view of how unprecedented this team, and this player, are.
