Kevin Durant to sign with the Nets (4 years, $164M)

Those uniforms are absolutely beautiful but are ruined with Adam Silver's greed (ads) and Nike's douchey self-promoting logo.

I miss Adidas.

 

[Spears] While Durant’s shocking move to join the Warriors in 2016 quickly paid dividends for him — two straight championships and two Finals MVP awards — there was always the sense that the 10-time All-Star felt like a distant second fiddle to Stephen Curry

 

What did the Nets gain by trading for KD instead of just signing him outright?

 

I think he made a mistake trusting Irving too much.

 

Lol cupcake playing in the Least with 30yr old kyrie while he shunned the rockets and a 27yr old harden 3 years ago

 

Durant destroyed his own legacy by taking that meeting in the Hamptons in 2016 only to be told 3 years later that the Warriors didn't needed him.

Now, he's broken -- got chewed up and spit out by the wayside by the Warriors. A truly tragic fall from from the top. Nobody outside Brooklyn even cares about him anymore. He's never going to be in the conversation for best player in the league again.

In hindsight, if Durant had any public relations sense back 2016, he would have chosen to go home and play for the Wizards.

D.C. would have immediately embraced him as a hometown hero and his narrative would have been elevated similar to what LeBron did for Cleveland after his return. Plus, the Wizards had a great young roster with Wall, Beal, Porter Jr., etc. Durant would have fit very nicely in that lineup and the Wizards would have instantly contended with the Cavaliers for the crown of the East with LeBron vs. Durant for best player in the league as the subplot.

After all, basketball is a form of entertainment and that's how you create storylines and shape narratives.

Even the business side made sense for Durant. D.C./Maryland/Virginia metroplex is the 6th largest in the US with over 6 million people -- ahead of the Bay Area. Plus, the ensuing media circus of Trump's presidency in 2016 created the perfect opportunity for sports to provide an escape for the people of D.C. where another public figure like an athlete could have risen to the occasion and easily endeared himself to the people by giving them some hope and perhaps a championship.

Nonetheless, the Shakespearean tragedy is now complete. Good luck to The Snake in Brooklyn!

 

Wish Morey had worked out a better construction on CP3's deal.

 

Well I guess that settles whether or not he's going to sue them. For me, the warriors mishandled it in two ways, one was the pressure put on him to return. Durant says this was not the case, I'm sort of inclined to believe him. The second was to act as gatekeepers if they felt his body wasn't ready. This second one is hard to confirm. Negligence and ignorance in the eyes of the law are not always the same thing. Did the Warriors willingly let him play all the while knowing this was a realistic outcome? Geez, that's hard to say. Without damning testimony saying that doctors actively lied to him, it's not a valid thing to believe.

Now, should the medical staff have known better? I think so. I think a number of people felt he came back too early. But hey, I have a PhD not an MD, so I'm a doctor not a physician. Either way, it's hard to blame that team.

 

Durant kills the stupid conspiracy theories lol. People looking for boogeymen where there aren’t any.

 

I don't get the blame placed on the warriors doctors, if Kevin's own doctor cleared him to play.

 

Why would Durant come out and say they mishandled it, what is he going to gain from that? It will only lead to a bad episode, another one for him, and surely he'd burn that Golden Gate bridge forever. People around the league would lose respect for him if he came out with details about that whole saga. For once, he's shown some maturity and just let the past be the past, but to think he's all of a sudden 100% truthful? I'm inclined to say no.

Now, there's no big conspiracy needed to believe that Durant was 1) pressured in different ways, doesn't have to be directly like some movie scene where a team official, coach or owner is talking to the doctors to convince them to tell Durant he's okay and that he doesn't give a damn if he can't play since he wants to win. It can be subtle or even through the media, which did happen. 2) told he was ready to go, that there was a risk, even though the doctors knew better and or were just incompetent.

In regards to point 2, it is negligent / ignorant as @Pizza_Da_Hut pointed out and tells me that there definitely was conflict of interest and people didn't protect Durant well enough. Of course he wanted to play and kudos for doing that, especially for a franchise and team who never really wanted you in the first place. My opinion of the Warriors doesn't change after this interview, I still think they carry themselves in way that is far from respectful. The owner, Kerr and pretty much all of their main guys have been disrespectful towards the league, other players, other franchises and have not been criticized that much. Only Durant, Kerr and to a degree now Curry is getting some. Hope that continues for the latter two.

My opinion of Durant has changed slightly since his return from that injury, he's gained my respect and I honestly feel bad for him as he truly struggles with his image and how he presents himself. He should just focus on himself and the Nets now, nothing else. Let's see how he handles it, hope he just goes out and plays basketball, stays away from social media and doesn't try to hard to prove himself and or talks about the Warriors. I just hope he can be somewhat honest from now and not act like the Warriors are all class, treated him with the utmost respect while he was there and it was all lovey dovey.

 

team with led by 1 superstar with 3 all stars wih a chip the year before

year after same team wins 73 games and comes back after being down 3 to 1 to your own team

free agency comes, you only meet this team and don't even bother to meet other teams and hear their offer

was he seriously expecting respect going in his direction???