The reported saga of Kevin Durant's departure from the Golden State Warriors keeps on getting stranger and stranger.

On Tuesday, Yahoo Sports published the first interview with Kevin Durant since he left the Warriors for the Brooklyn Nets in free agency. In the article, Yahoo's Chris B. Haynes wrote that Durant decided to keep "his mouth shut and focus on his craft" at some point during the 2018-19 season after chatter regarding his impending free agency reached a deafening level.

"I just dove deeper into the game," Durant told Haynes. "I just worked out as hard as I could, and focused on being the best player I could be every day."

On Thursday, Haynes said Durant's "deep dive" entailed not speaking to his Warriors teammates.

"There was a point with Kevin Durant when he just stopped talking to his teammates," Haynes said during an appearance on Fox Sports' "The Herd with Colin Cowherd." "He was really on an island and didn't have somebody that he was close with on that team. The only person he was close with was Quinn Cook, because they're from the same area. But Quinn is a younger guy that doesn't have much clout within the franchise."

RELATED: Finally we know who Kevin Durant blames for his Achilles injury

Haynes did not specify when this shift occurred, but said it was after the courtside spat with Draymond Green in November.

"After the Draymond stuff went down and then the New York Knicks chatter started going haywire, Durant just stopped talking," Haynes said. "He felt like if he said something, it would give a lot of credence to people saying he's only thinking about free agency. You would see Durant leaving the arena by himself and entering the arena by himself and really not speaking to anyone."

In the Tuesday article, Haynes reported that a team official had to ask Durant "to liven up his disposition" on multiple occasions.

"There were a lot of things going on and you could tell everybody knew the writing was on the wall early on that it was going to be his last season on the Warriors," Haynes said.

MORE WARRIORS: An Oakland man pleaded for help fixing his local park. Then Steph Curry stepped in.

You can listen to Haynes' full appearance on Fox Sports here.

Eric Ting is an SFGATE staff writer. Email: eric.ting@sfgate.com | Twitter:@_ericting