Last night I sat at a bar with a couple friends and discussed sports. We talked about the impact they had on our lives. How they kept us out of trouble and gave us an outlet that we truly needed.

I have been very vocally and outwardly devastated by the Kevin Durant move. I received quite a bit of criticism from people saying it doesn’t actually matter and there are far more important things to worry about than sports.

…Well, duh. Yeah, I certainly played up my sadness for comedy’s sake, but that was to cope. I was legitimately hurt.

“Sports don’t actually matter.”

Sports do matter. My life has been invested in sports, perhaps to a fault, but it’s too late to turn back now. In the grand scheme things sports don’t matter, but then what does? Art? Music? Entertainment? Love? At the end of the day we determine what matters. So why sports?

Maybe it’s because I’m competitive. Maybe it’s just a misguided American ideal of masculinity interconnected with athletics. Or maybe it’s because the first time I ever felt like my Mom was proud of me was when she told me how happy it made her to hear my name over the intercom at football games. I’m one of seven kids so seeing legitimate pride on my Mom’s face made me feel important for the first time. It was my outlet. The way some people had art or music, I had sports. Sports were everything.

To an 8 year old, your dad living three hours away is basically the other side of the planet. Watching the Cowboys every Thanksgiving gave me an anchor in that relationship. The 6 year age gap between my oldest brother and I was always closed by sports. My best friends were my teammates, my role models were my coaches. Sports were everything.

As an adult running is my outlet. Watching professionals is my distraction. From work, from school, from the “real problems” of society and my own crippling student loan debt. Fantasy Football keeps me connected with my college friends as they spread across the country. A good friend of mine passed away a year ago and the lasting memory I have is the smile he had sprinting down field after catching a game winning Hail Mary in an intramural football game. Sports are everything.

“But it’s not like you actually know Kevin Durant.”

I do. I got to know Kevin when I was a freshman in high school and he was torching every player in the Big XII as a member of the hated Texas Longhorns. I knew him a bit less when he moved to Seattle and won Rookie of the Year. And then… I found out he was moving to OKC.

I grew up less than 30 minutes from where the Thunder play. Just down the road from their original practice facility (an old roller rink I attended too many elementary school birthday parties at to recount). I now live in a college town about 30 minutes in the opposite direction. I wasn’t born here. But Oklahoma is home. And someone finally deemed us worthy of our very own team.

Over the next eight years, I got to know Kevin pretty well. Through his Instagram, through his Twitter, through his devotion to the community that we shared. Through his heart. Through his passion. Through his play.

And through his comments, his character, and his actions he established Oklahoma City. He became the Thunder. He became Oklahoma. A kid from D.C. A Longhorn. Our adopted son. Our pride.

I had a stronger connection to Kevin than I’ve had with almost anyone. He’s a Redskins fan, and I’m a Cowboys fan. He’s a Longhorn, and I’m a Sooner. But it never mattered. I watched him yell and scream. I yelled and screamed. I watched him celebrate. I celebrated. I watched him cry. I cried with him.

“Well you can’t blame him for leaving.”

You bet your ass I can. I get to be irrational after a break up of this magnitude. Unfortunately for athletes it can’t be “a business decision.” They become too important to communities for that. And unfortunately for Kevin, there is an overwhelming sense of family in Oklahomans, and he was our proudest son.

It stings, it hurts, but just like any break up you have to appreciate everything that person gave you. You have to be thankful that the last eight years were very real and very meaningful. You have to understand that eventually we can accept this and move forward.

To be honest I don’t blame Kevin for leaving. But I do blame him for hurting us.

So to Kevin… You were our MVP. You gave us more hope than I thought possible, and for that, I love you. I hope you get destroyed in Golden State, but if you give me some time, we can be friends again. Because sports matter.