Since making the decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors in free agency last summer, Kevin Durant has caught plenty of heat about making the jump.
It was something that was front and center in his first return to Oklahoma City in February as an opponent where he received a sweltering amount of boos toward him from his former fan base. In a recent interview with Michael Lee of the Vertical, Durant channel a similar response that LeBron James had given when discussing the hatred that is directed toward him in regards to that decision.
“That was a two-hour time slot in those people’s lives where they got some entertainment for the day. And they were going to go home and get up the next day and go to work. It’s all it was. I didn’t take it personal. I don’t hate anybody that called me any name there. It’s entertainment. That’s what they look at it as. It’s not life or death. I didn’t walk into their homes and do anything to them personally. I’m sure most people, the same thing they did on July 3, they did the same thing on July 4, July 5 and leading up to that game. Their lives didn’t change based on what I did. That two-and-a-half hour time slot where they watched the game and called me names, they forgot all about it when they went home at night and still had to live their life, just like I had to. I have no hard feelings. It was all fun and games for me, too.
Durant's response is quite similar to James' answer as he made it a point to state that the fans' lives wouldn't be affected in a great compacity by his choice to join the Warriors. As for James, here is what he exactly stated during his disappointing 2011 NBA Finals against the eventual NBA Champion Dallas Mavericks:
“All the people that were rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I'm going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things that I want to do with me and my family and be happy with that. So they can get a few days or a few months or whatever the case may be on being happy about not only myself, but the Miami Heat not accomplishing their goal. But they got to get back to the real world at some point.”
There are plenty of similarities between both of their situations keyed in on them leaving the team that drafted them and had put the franchise on their backs through the first portion of their respective careers. That said, it is a decision that Durant could quickly benefit from as he has made it to the NBA Finals for just his second time in his career with a chance to earn his first NBA title in a matchup likely against James and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
At the end of the day, Durant is going to continue to catch hatred from Thunder fans for leaving regardless of whatever the reasoning was.
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