Kevin Durant Had a Stern Message for Those Who Think He Took the Easy Route Joining the Warriors
Kevin Durant is one of the top players in the NBA. When his career is over, he’ll go down as one of the best players ever to play the game. Durant made a huge move when he left the Oklahoma City Thunder and joined the Golden State Warriors.
Many thought that he shouldn’t have made that move, but Durant decided to leave, and it worked out for him.
Kevin Durant made the ultimate decision in 2016
Durant blossomed into a superstar during his time in Oklahoma City. He won the NBA MVP award as a member of the Thunder in 2014, and he accomplished a lot during his time there. Durant helped lead the Thunder to the NBA Finals in 2012, and that was his first finals appearance. The Thunder lost to the Miami Heat that year, but they were determined to make it back. Unfortunately, the Thunder never made it back to the finals after 2012.
But, they did come close in 2016. The Thunder advanced to the 2016 Western Conference Finals against the Warriors and took a 3-1 lead. All they needed was one win to advance to the finals, but they couldn’t seal the deal as the Warriors came back to defeat the Thunder in seven games. It was a disappointing finish for Durant and the Warriors, and who knew that was the last time Durant would play for the Thunder.
Durant made the decision to join the team that defeated him in the Western Conference Finals, and not too many people were fond of that move. But for Durant, he wanted to play somewhere where he could compete for a championship, and he did not think that he could do that anymore in Oklahoma City. LeBron James did the same thing when he left Cleveland to join the Miami Heat. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do, and for Durant, that decision worked out for him.
Kevin Durant having success in with the Warriors
When Durant joined the Warriors, they immediately became a super team, and they did not waste any time achieving success. During the 2016-17 season, the Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, and Durant won his first title and first Finals MVP award. He accomplished something he always wanted to do, and that was winning a championship.
The next year the Warriors defeated the Cavaliers in the finals again to go back-to-back. It was their third title in four years and Durant’s second. He won the Finals MVP award that year too. No one could stop the Warriors during Durant’s time there, and they had a chance to win a third straight title in 2019, but Durant suffered a calf injury during the Western Conference Finals. He tried to play through it during the finals against the Toronto Raptors but ended up re-injuring it. If he never got injured, there was a good chance that the Warriors would have three-peated.
Durant says he ‘earned’ his rings with the Warriors
Now that Durant is with the Brooklyn Nets, he will look to do what he did with the Warriors and win championships. Some still believe that Durant took the easy way to win titles when he joined the Warriors, but Durant does not agree. A CBS Sports article talked about how Durant appeared on JJ Reddick’s podcast “The Old Man and the Three,” and Durant talked about his titles with the Warriors.
When asked if he thinks he took the easy route when he joined the Warriors, he had a simple response. “No,” Durant said. “What does that even mean? I just never understood what that means, because I still come to work every day. I go through every rep at 100 percent speed. So, I just don’t understand that.
“And I played at an elite level in the Finals in all the biggest moments. And I could understood if I didn’t play well at all. But I played the best that I could play in both Finals for that team. So, I felt like I got up every day and held myself to a championship, elite-player standard and reached it pretty much 98 percent of the time in practice and games and shootarounds. So, yeah, of course, I earned that.” There’s a reason he’s a two-time Finals MVP, and he performed at his best when it mattered. So Durant will never believe that he took the easy route leaving Oklahoma City.
