I Miss Kevin Durant on the Warriors: An Apology

Retrospectively honoring KD’s decision to join Golden State

Original art by Antonio Losada (Twitter)

It’s a Saturday night in April. The NBA is suspended. Kevin Durant hasn’t played a game all season, and he isn’t even a Warrior anymore. Instead, everyone is indoors, riding out this COVID quarantine. But here I am, watching highlights of KD’s historic 2016–2019 run in the Bay Area, feeling inspired by the man’s polarizing decision to join the best team in the League.

I grew up watching the Warriors throughout the 1990s and 2000s as an elementary, middle, high school, and college student. I’ve seen their uniforms change four times, and could list off every lottery pick bust, embarrassing blowout loss, and years of miserable free agent signings I’ve witnessed as a faithful fan. For two decades, there wasn’t much to look forward to as a supporter of the Dubs. Just Ls. And although the “We Believe” era was electric, it was short-lived.

Then the Splash Brothers came along and brought us glory, and things were never the same. Seemingly overnight, our team became the one to watch, the one to cheer, the one to hate. It felt surreal. So, when our hype culminated with a Kevin Durant signing in 2016 after we had already bagged a ring and posted one of the best records in NBA history, I was initially… disappointed? I had watched the organization develop itself with a gritty, persistent blue-collar identity that defined East Oakland — where the team was located — only to see a superstar come steal the show once we were in the national spotlight.

I remember seeing the first Durant posters plastered at BART stations in San Francisco’s commercial districts, feeling betrayed that he had already supplanted Curry and Thompson in the Bay Area’s imagination. Generations of players, coaches, fans, and arena workers had built these Warriors, but suddenly it felt like we were giving it all away to this 6-foot-10 new guy.

I stayed loyal to my squad, of course, but I’ll admit that watching his first games with us felt uncomfortable at times. “It’s not fair,” “that’s cheating,” “they took the easy way out,” “they’re bitches.” Every game I had to hear someone crying, whether it was a shit-talking friend, the internet, or sports media. And I bought into it at first; maybe this wasn’t the best move to make. Until I realized: who the fuck are any of us to judge a man’s success, to determine what’s the right or wrong decision for him and his career?

The Warriors were a historically great team, and Kevin Durant is a historically great player, and together, they made NBA history. Call it the easy way. Call it cheating. But I’m convinced that it wasn’t nearly as effortless as we seem to dismiss it as, otherwise every player and organization would have already achieved it. And they haven’t, though they’ve tried. Remember Barkley leaving Phoenix in ‘96 to play with Olajuwon and Drexler in Houston (three Hall of Famers)? How about Malone and Payton joining the Lakers to win with Shaq and Kobe in ‘04 (four Hall of Famers)? Or Kevin Garnett leaving Minnesota for a “mega deal” in ‘07 to team up with Paul Pierce and Ray Allen in Boston (three HoF)? And don’t get me started on LeBron’s constant reshifting of every roster he has ever joined (most notoriously when he got Chris Bosh to ditch Canada to win with him and D-Wade in Miami; and is currently doing after recruiting AD). Players leave teams, players want to win, it’s been done before. It’s just that no one did it as perfectly primed or as dominantly as KD and the Warriors did. What they built was something far more superior than anything the example teams above ever achieved (statistically and culturally speaking).

This is my apology to Durant for not backing him from day one. This is my declaration against all of those people who are still (and believe me, there are plenty) complaining and bitching about the Warriors and Durant being “fake champions” or “snakes”— as if there is some gatekeeping troll waving a wand in sportsland declaring who is worthy and who isn’t based on some fucked up machista definition of “true victory” or “snakeness.”

Now that Durant isn’t in the Bay and the NBA has been on pause for nearly a month, let’s take a moment to genuinely appreciate what he achieved with Golden State. Personally, I can say I admire the hell out of him as a person and an athlete. None of us will ever know the amounts of pressure the dude must’ve been under his whole life just to reach that level of elite performance, and very few of us would’ve had the fortitude to actually follow our dreams in that moment when he decided to leave the Thunder. Isn’t that why free agency exists? You know, so players can validate their talents on a winning team? But since he and the Warriors were too good, let’s take down the banners?

I applaud you, KD, for following your heart and doing the thing that everyone criticized. You fearlessly achieved your highest goal by any means necessary, and I think that’s something we should value as a society and as sports fans. I’m grateful that we live in a country where we can work our asses off to become one of the greatest contributors in our profession, and when the time comes, we can reward our dedication by doing what we think most benefits our growth, happiness, and success — whether it upsets others or not.

Let me make this easy for those of you who, like me, don’t have our decisions broadcasted on national television: if you were an extremely coveted employee in your field, but felt unfulfilled with your boss and coworkers who you’d spent seven years of your life working for (OKC Thunder), and you were suddenly given the chance to join a better work environment where you felt your skillset would be valued and maximized and where you would likely achieve your greatest level of success imaginable (GS Warriors), you’re telling me you’d be some noble hero and say, “no thank you, I’ll take the harder option”? No, you wouldn’t. You’d sign that damn contract and convince yourself you were doing the right thing for you and your family. So, if we can make excuses to justify why we deserve to pursue the best opportunities available to advance our lives, why can’t a world-class Small Forward in the NBA do the same? KD’s choice was human — he simply chose the best option available — and it’s what any of us would do if we had the same option to level up in our regular lives.

Truth is, I think toxic masculinity is a problem, since that’s what is underlyingly suggested by criticisms of KD’s move. They’re the same people who indirectly perpetuate the belief that being a man is somehow defined by an unspoken set of guidelines to endure anything at all costs, that we supposedly must live and die by our ability to overcome self-imposed challenges: “How hard was it? Oh, it wasn’t the hardest thing ever? Then it doesn’t matter.” “Did he suffer and bleed for it? No. Then he’s a pussy.” “Athletes don’t have mental health priorities and their workplace doesn’t affect their emotions. It’s all about the game.” That’s basically what I hear these bullies saying. They are advocating that he wasn’t “man enough” to join a “real team” and “win the right way.” What the fuck kind of 5th grade shit is that? These haters shift the conversation to some childish narrative of Durant’s worth as a “competitor,” as if he isn’t the most elite basketball player on any court.

Durant showed us truth. He revealed how badly he wanted to be a champion, and that defines a human to me. He won with a winning team. That’s what competitors do, they train their entire lives to win. Why is it so taboo then for an elite player in his prime to join an elite team in theirs, as if it’s never been attempted before? It pisses me off to still hear people complaining about how the Warriors and Durant were somehow illegitimate because they didn’t follow some imaginary rule that has already broken. Many have attempted to do what KD did: join a team that they thought would bring them a championship on a winning roster. But since the roster included Steph Curry and Klay Thompson it somehow doesn’t count? KD dominated the league with the Warriors and helped to redefine the landscape of the game in the process, yet somehow critics still cast him as a cowardly villain. Nah. I don’t buy it.

Durant’s Warriors was the best team I have ever had the pleasure of enjoying, and I doubt I’ll ever see a winning machine of basketball beauty like that ever again. Fair or not, right or wrong, noble or shameless, the dude rocked the NBA world like no one else, and he did it with a perfectly designed team that he could plug into. It was the apex of modern basketball, something most of us will never see on a nightly basis again; unstoppable, literally, when those players were healthy. Can’t we just appreciate that? Toss aside your machismo and enjoy the most killer basketball team you’ve ever seen, the kind we only dared to build in video games because we could only fantasize about. Until KD made it real.

Thank you, KD, for making your years in the Bay Area our best years. We still carry #35 on our backs because you gave it your all. No one can deny that.