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Kevin Durant announced his divorce from Oklahoma with a 351-word blog post on Independence Day.

In Oklahoma, they do Fourth of July big. Parades in the morning, cookouts after noon. Durant’s declaration of NBA independence landed right between the two. Tweeted out from his account at 10:38 a.m. local time, titled ‘My Next Chapter,’ it dropped on the state like a hammer, buzzing through phones like wildfire into gathered communities. A morning of celebration turned into an afternoon of mourning.

Mike Sherman, then the sports editor at The Oklahoman, went to the annual Edmond fireworks show that night. There was a malfunction. The show ended in a whimper. No one cared. The spirit of the citizens had already been broken. Depressed, they dragged themselves home, a holiday ruined.

“People were more sad than mad,” Sherman said. “It wasn’t a sense of betrayal, it was a sense of loss.”

But anger captures headlines. Some guys get a few holiday beers deep and pour lighter fluid on a No. 35 jersey or tape a rant – fishing for some retweets – and that becomes the face of the reaction.

Then the rest of the country rightly wonders: How can a fan-base be so venomous toward a man making a personal employment choice after delivering so much, so gracefully to a region for eight years?

The viciousness was silly. But the heartbreak was real and the sting will never leave. To so many in the state, Kevin Durant wasn’t just an athlete. He was a symbol. This wasn’t Shaq bolting from Orlando. This was the Liberty Bell leaving Philadelphia.

To understand the emotional storm Durant is walking into Saturday night – back in Oklahoma City facing Thunder fans for the first time – you must understand the state’s history and where he fits into it.

“He took Oklahoma City to the Great Wall of China,” Sherman said. “He’s the most famous Oklahoman of all-time.”

Texas had the Alamo. California had the Gold Rush. They arrived into statehood with an accepted identity. Oklahoma didn’t. Settlers forced Native Americans into the desolate territory in the early 1800s, then displaced them from it in the late 1800s during a series of land runs.

All the bordering states had already been formed. In 1907, what was left over became Oklahoma.

“By the time the federal government said make a state out of the mess, there was no unifying story,” said Dr. Bob Blackburn, Oklahoma’s premier historian. “You might say, well, it’s the Land Run. But the Native Americans don’t like the Land Run.”

The first big oil strike comes in 1905. Oklahoma soon becomes one of the country’s fastest growing states. There was a wheat boom out in the panhandle and an oil and agriculture boom all across the state. An identity is forming.

But the Great Depression hits in 1929. Oil plummets to 10 cents a barrel. Cotton drops to 10 cents a pound. Poor farming methods and severe droughts lead to the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Farms dry up. Bankruptcy hits. Families pack up and flee West.

John Steinbeck captures this in his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1939 novel – The Grapes of Wrath – about an economically distraught Oklahoma family in search of better opportunity in California.

To outsiders, this becomes the identity of Oklahoma: a woebegone, deserted farmland where leftover citizens dream about better days in better places. But those inside the state, so inwardly proud of their home, come to despise that external reputation. They search for a more positive representation.

“This is the beginning of what I call hero worship,” Blackburn said.

It’s Will Rogers, a famous entertainer bringing the heartland to Hollywood. It’s Jim Thorpe, a decorated athlete and Olympian born in Oklahoma an American Indian. Then comes the rise of OU football.

Bud Wilkinson’s Sooners win three national championships in the 1950s. Barry Switzer’s Sooners win three more between 1974 and 1985. The coaches and players become heroes of a region, the university’s football program its proud symbol spread across the nation on fall Saturdays.

But the state’s financial climate is in a bad place in the 80s. Banks fail. “The economy is toxic,” Blackburn said. “No one’s investing. People are losing hope. People are leaving.”

A turning point arrives in 1991. Oklahoma City loses a bidding war with Indianapolis for the United Airlines maintenance center because of concerns about OKC’s quality of life and lack of inner-city infrastructure.

“That was kind of a shot,” Blackburn said. “A body blow.”

The strategy changes. Instead of looking outward, asking others to come in and rescue them from despair, the state’s biggest city looks inward. OKC introduces the MAPS project in 1993, a multi-year redevelopment plan that raises more than $300 million to restructure the city.

The bombing occurs in April of 1995. Timothy McVeigh detonates a car explosive at 9:02 a.m. at the federal building in OKC. It’s a Wednesday. People are just arriving to work. It kills 168, injures 850 and either destroys or damages more than 300 buildings.

The country watches in horror. It remains the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in U.S. history. The tragedy becomes a label. Outsiders again see a state in despair.

“Our brand was damaged,” OKC mayor Mick Cornett said.

But within the community, recovery and resilience breed motivation. MAPS zips into motion. The downtown begins its transformation. Abandoned Bricktown slowly morphs into an entertainment district. A ballpark for the Triple-A Oklahoma City Dodgers opens in 1998, the canal in 1999.

“The rebirth of Oklahoma City,” Blackburn said.

The energy industry spikes in the early 2000s. The price of natural gas skyrockets. Oklahoma is at the forefront. Improved technology leads to more productive methods of extracting oil and easier recognition.

“Suddenly six out of seven wells are producing instead of one out of seven,” Blackburn said.

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Money floods into the state. Districts across the city sprout up. The Ford Center opens in 2002. Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans in 2005. The NBA is searching for a temporary home for the Hornets. Oklahoma City is still in the infant stages of its transformation. But they now have a usable arena and David Stern recognizes the economic backing from the state’s energy pioneers.

The Hornets arrive. Current Warrior David West is their young power forward. “Small town,” he remembers. “The restaurants weren’t open late after games.”

But the fanbase was friendly and fiercely loyal. They smack the eventual champion Heat by 15 in OKC that season. The crowd is un-NBA-like, filling up pregame, standing and clapping before tip and remaining fully engaged throughout.

“Usually in NBA cities, games don’t get rocking until the second quarter,” West said. “Miami wasn’t ready. I remember Pat Riley was so upset…That support made it hard to leave OKC.”

The Hornets return to New Orleans. But the experience proves that the state can support a professional team. The economy continues to build. The NBA approves a relocation of the Seattle Sonics to OKC in 2008. It’s a monumental moment for the region.

“A significant, giant step forward,” said Cornett, the mayor. “If you go from 0 to 1 major league team, it’s a huge jump. If you go from 3 to 4 or 5 to 4, I don’t think it matters near as much. Other markets lose one or get one, it affects fans of that sport. We get one, it affects everyone. We instantly kind of get this jump in people’s perception.”

Two Oklahoma-born businessmen, Clay Bennett and Aubrey McClendon, deliver the team. But the relocation process is murky and controversial. The franchise arrives at a perfect time to push the state’s success story forward. But there’s no personification of that. Rich, older, white businessmen don’t exactly connect to every layer of a community.

“Not everyone can love an Aubrey McClendon,” Blackburn said. “He was a good guy to many and a bad guy to others. A lot of people don’t like the energy industry at all. So there was nobody for everyone to hold onto as us. No one yet to look at and say: ‘Our story is in this individual.’”

Kevin Durant was 20 when the franchise relocated. He didn’t pick Oklahoma. He was dropped there. When he arrives to scout it, the airport looks abandoned. When he drives into downtown, there’s nobody in the streets.

“Then I stayed in the Skirvin (hotel) and I heard it was haunted,” Durant said in his state Hall of Fame speech years later. “So I thought, that’s a rough start.”

But a love affair is quickly triggered. Durant, so regimented and serious about his basketball work, comes to appreciate the benefits of playing in a small city. It’s uniquely built to nurture a young star.

The community is protective. The franchise is supportive. The distractions are minimal. Many of the avenues to derail a promising career are shut off. Durant is enclosed, locked inside an OKC basketball cocoon to blossom his Hall of Fame talent.

“As time went on, I started to realize the core values of Oklahomans,” Durant said. “Hard work, resiliency, humility. It made me a better man and it made me a better basketball player.”

The team quickly morphs into a must-watch NBA darling. They are planted on national TV regularly. The city’s growth is pinned up for the country to see: ESPN and TNT dispersing live shots of an advancing downtown – the packed, raucous crowd impressing viewers.

OKC has been jolted to life and the young, vigorous team representing it fits so perfectly into that narrative. The state comes to adore its emotional, polarizing point guard from Los Angeles (Russell Westbrook), its high-flying shot-blocker from the Congo (Serge Ibaka) and the boy-genius architect who constructed the roster (Sam Presti).

“Hero worship,” Blackburn said.

But Kevin Durant is the pillar, the franchise’s face, the spokesman, the identity of the state. It’s no longer the Dust Bowl or the bombing. Durant becomes their story. Forget the basketball talent: His personality checks every box.

Durant starts showing up to press conferences with a backpack. Asked what’s in it: his iPod and his bible. A religious guy in the Bible Belt. Check.

The story of Durant’s mother, Wanda Pratt, surfaces. She raised Kevin and his brother, Tony, through rough times in the Washington D.C. projects. Wanda sits courtside on most nights. She embraces the state. The state embraces her. Their love for Kevin grows. He’s a family man. Check.

In his 2014 MVP speech, Durant delivers a famous, tearful thank you to Wanda for the way she raised him.

“I was in the building,” Cornett said. “I teared up when he was talking. It was emotional in there. None of that was phony. They really cared about each other. Off the court, he was just kind of everything you could hope for in a city ambassador.”

You couldn’t have matched state and superstar more perfectly.

“He was hitting the buttons we’re looking for: youth, spirituality, a sense of family, a sense of loyalty, of being one of us,” Blackburn said. “Here is our adopted son.”

But dating back to its inception, Oklahoma has a history of division. The settlers against the natives. The infamous Greenwood race riot in 1921. The cross-state rivalry between Tulsa and OKC. The Bedlam rivalry between the universities: OU and OSU. Maybe you’re a Barry Sanders guy, not a Barry Switzer guy.

Durant and the Thunder had no such issue. They tied the state together like never before. OU crimson and OSU orange unite in blue. Tulsa residents travel to games and buy OKC gear. White oil men idolize the same player who connects so well with the area’s minority communities.

Oklahoma has more Native Americans than any state besides California. African Americans comprise around 10 percent of the state’s population. Thousands of Vietnamese refugees relocated to OKC after the fall of Saigon in 1975. Hispanic students are the largest racial group in the Tulsa public school system.

Their state – outwardly stereotyped by others as a land of white cowboys and farmers – now had local heroes that bucked that norm. Kevin Durant, articulate, black and universally revered, was now walking into their Oklahoma classrooms to help pick out a book or hand out some shoes.

“The chance to see a worldwide superstar is pretty remote during everyday life,” Cornett said. “But Kevin gave so generously of his time in Oklahoma City.”

Disaster strikes the state again in May 2013. A massive EF5 tornado ravages the town of Moore, a suburb of OKC, killing 24, injuring 377 and destroying entire neighborhoods.

Durant’s foundation announces a $1 million donation to aid the relief effort. The Thunder organization matches. So does Nike. Two days later, Durant tours the wreckage. One of the iconic photos from the tragedy is of a blue Durant jersey hanging from a tree branch, above the wreckage, as citizens emerge to begin the recovery.

“I love the state of Oklahoma so much,” Durant said at the time. “For this to hit so close to home, I want to do all I can to help.”

The Thunder’s arrival boosts an already thriving economy. People flood downtown on game nights. New restaurants pop up everywhere. The population spikes past 600-thousand. They are now the country’s 27th most populated city.

Durant moves into the revived Deep Deuce district, right next to Bricktown. The Devon Tower is completed in 2012, a 50-story skyscraper that becomes the state’s “beacon” as Durant would later call it.

In 1998, OKC only had one downtown hotel. “The Sheraton,” Blackburn said. “And you could get a room for $39 a night.” There are now more than 20 and more on the way.

“I drive through downtown, through midtown, through the Asian district and see so many different businesses, so many different people,” Durant said in a Sports Illustrated interview. “It’s a big, diverse city that’s grown with the team.”

Free agency fears begin in the summer of 2014. LeBron James announces his return to Cleveland. Durant’s contract isn’t up for two more years, but he’s the next big fish. The chatter begins, starting in D.C.: “If LeBron can go home, why can’t Kevin?”

The thought of Durant playing elsewhere is startling to a fresh fanbase. This is all still so new. He arrived with the franchise, signed his rookie extension when eligible, routinely called the place “home” and never hinted at discontent.

“I wouldn’t want to play in any other city,” he once said.

This creates a swell of pride and a sense of affirmation within the state. This is a place stamped by abandonment: The Grapes of Wrath. Displaced farmers forced to go West. Promising youth fleeing south to Dallas or to the coasts for better opportunities.

But here’s an imported, coveted talent – the face of the state, the man who brought the Oklahoma City brand to the Eastern hemisphere – saying no, biting back against that perception. He echoes what they see: a growing place he likes and wants to live, not a place that is forced upon him.

“I’m in Washington D.C. quite a bit,” Cornett said. “Every time I’d go the past few years, everyone would be asking what I think of Kevin. Did I think he was going to go to the Wizards? Just the idea that we had somebody that they wanted, it made you feel good about your city.”

But Durant evolves over the years. The business of sports complicates matters. The playoff disappointments pile up. He begins thinking more deeply about life beyond the game. What meshed with 22-year-old Durant may not jive with 28-year-old Durant. “I’m trying to find out who I am,” he said this past November.

The league’s cap spike opens up his options. He can play anywhere. So many factors – which have been endlessly dissected – lead to his departure for the Bay Area. But only one matters: That’s where Durant wants to play. His life, his choice. He gave Oklahoma eight great years. He opted for a new adventure. You can love a place and still leave it.

“I think when he said all that stuff about his love for this place, he meant it,” Cornett said. “I don’t think he was lying or fooling us.”

But it’s the perfect storm of devastation for Oklahomans. Durant didn’t just depart, he went to the Warriors. Twenty-eight other landing spots would’ve stung less.

This was a public abandonment that fit the state’s despised narrative: Durant left the small-town heartland and migrated west for Silicon Valley and a land of more opportunity, for the big, bold ‘lightyears ahead’ franchise that was tossing him into their cupboard already stocked with talent.

The Warriors had stormed OKC and taken a sledgehammer to the state’s spirit in the playoffs just a month earlier. Now they’d returned to rip Oklahoma’s heart out, stealing away the state’s proudest symbol on the morning of their favorite holiday.

“I have sobbed for hours,” McKinley Jackson wrote to Durant, through The Oklahoman, on July Fourth. “I feel like I’ve lost a best friend today. I will be forever grateful for the love that you have shared with Oklahoma and the hope that you gave our city…I hope you can understand the hurt we feel today and the hurt that I feel writing this. You have changed our city for the better and have made us undeniably happy these past 8 years. I love you KD and I always will. I wish you the best of luck, but here is where we have to part.”