KD Lies To Himself, Saying Golden State Was 'Underdog' When He Joined Up
Earlier this week, Kevin Durant went on the "Million Dollaz Worth of Game" podcast and lied his tail off about the Golden State Warriors.
"That first experience of me going (to the NBA Finals), it was like, 'Nah, I need to experience that again. And I want to be on that stage again,'" Durant said of his finals appearance back in 2012 with the OKC Thunder.
"And that run that we went, from the 2012 first round to the Finals, that was the most fun I had playing basketball. And I was like, 'I need this experience again. I don't care who it's with. I want some dudes that want it, too.' Because I felt more alive. I felt like this is what I should be doing on Earth at this point, is playing the game."
This is when KD starts lying
When asked about joining the Golden State Warriors, Durant replied, "I seen that that's a great team that wants to win, fun environment, great city. Oakland is like D.C. . I felt like I was riding through Southeast. The organization never been a winning organization. When I was in the league, nobody liked Golden State. So I felt still like an underdog to me."
"So, I'm like, 'Damn, that's an underdog franchise to me. This feels good.' Like, 'This is where I'm supposed to be. It ain't L.A.. It ain't New York. It feel like where I'm supposed to be.'"
Let's unpack this
So KD believes that a team that lost to LeBron, Kyrie Irving and the rest of the Cavaliers in the Finals, after winning 73 regular season games, is suddenly an underdog? Then he mentioned how he gravitated towards the small city like Oakland, though he recently took his talents to Brooklyn, New York.
About the "underdog" tag: someone let Durant know that he joined the most successful regular season team (73 wins broke the 1996 Bulls record of 72) and that that team had Steph Curry and Klay Thompson on it. I haven't even mentioned that the 2017 Defensive Player Of The Year, Draymond Green, was their power forward. Now suddenly a player who believes he's the best in the world joins that team, and he felt like he just joined a group of underdogs? Get out of town.
What's really going on here is KD wants to steer the narrative that winning two titles in Golden State was hard. Not only was it not hard, but the basketball world told him it wasn't -- like immediately. Everyone complained that there was a big difference between creating a super team (which we already aren't huge fans of) and jumping your opponents with an overload of talent. No team, including LeBron's loaded Cavaliers, stood a freakin' chance. Doesn't matter whether the Warriors were playing in California or Iran. The market didn't matter because they were unbeatable.
KD and Kyrie are a perfect fit
Could these two be more made for each other? Both care what everyone says and are always trying to control the narrative. I should also add that KD is a nice kid. He engages with his audience frequently, and I will always applaud that. But let's ditch the pretense that his move to Golden State was anything short of a cake walk.
Draymond Green, his own teammate, even mentioned last year how much it bothered Durant that he didn't get credit for his titles with the Warriors in 2018 and '19.
Durant balled out, so let's all just move on and put that Golden State tenure in the past.