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If Kevin Durant suddenly walked away from the NBA right now and called it a career, what would be his lasting legacy? What’s the first thing people would think of when his name gets mentioned? If you run a survey with those questions, chances are that it would yield a variety of answers. Some would say they’d remember Durant for being one of the surest bucket-getters in basketball history, like his contemporaries in LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard, or as a two-time NBA champion, or for his days as part of the dynamic duo with Russell Westbrook.
Perhaps a few others would think of Durant first as that person who won’t hesitate to hydrate his body with Scarlett Johansson’s bathwater. Durant probably would rather people associate his entire time as a public figure with that brain-fart tweet from nine years ago than with the vile characterizations his image has accrued over the years, to which he is partly to blame.
The public’s perception of Kevin Durant is complex. There are many layers to his basketball career. Many more to his life outside of it. In building his legacy, Durant has taken a lot of routes. Among those paths led him to the highest point of his career.
By joining a Golden State Warriors team that set an NBA record of 73 wins a season prior in 2016, Durant finally won his first championship in the league, which was the only item missing from his resume. That same path also subjected his image to a seemingly endless philosophical mess grounded on the notion that the two titles he won with the Warriors would have still been won by the team even without him. It didn’t help Durant that the Warriors team he joined was the same unit that his Oklahoma City Thunder team nearly beat in the 2016 Western Conference Finals.
A year after joining the Warriors, Durant got caught having a burner Twitter account, which he used to defend himself online. Durant had his reasons why he had a secret Twitter account to cater to his alter-ego, saying that it provided him an escape from the public’s eye. But getting caught with a burner account only made him look like an emotional midget in the eyes of many — someone who felt insecure enough, despite his prominent stature, to engage random people in random internet debates.
Kevin Durant’s legacy isn’t spotless. He’s lost the respect of a lot of fans. But he’s still got plenty of time to redeem himself. LeBron James and Kawhi Leonard both had to endure being vilified nonstop by the fans and media for their respective career choices which ended up as PR mishaps but have managed to see fans’ perception of them take a positive shift.
Win A Championship With Kyrie Irving
Most of Durant’s detractors were born on the same exact second they heard of the news that he was going to join the Warriors. Kevin Durant’s decision to join the team that was just months removed from beating the Thunder in an unforgettable conference finals series nearly broke the internet and caused his reputation to take a nosedive. It was viewed as a deplorably weak move no superstar should ever make. It also reminded people of another much-maligned superstar decision, which was when LeBron James broke Cleveland’s heart by announcing that he was going to take his talents to South Beach.
The issue for most people was that having Kevin Durant play alongside Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green was like adding a glass of water to the Pacific Ocean; it was never going to make much of a difference, which is why many are still having a hard time recognizing Durant’s rings.
Kevin Durant can’t change what happened. But all fans just want to see Durant win a title that they can bring themselves to believe is not a product of some unfair laboratory experiment like the ones he won with the Warriors.
Kyrie Irving is an amazing talent, but Durant teaming up with him is deemed more acceptable. For one, Durant is coming off a devastating Achilles injury. If Durant can win as the Batman to Irving’s Robin, the same way LeBron did in 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers, that should be a big plus to the former league MVP’s legacy. Moreover, bringing a championship to a title-less franchise (the New Jersey Americans won twice in the ABA, but the franchise was won zero since moving to the NBA in 1976) was also part of the same formula Kawhi Leonard used to gain back some of the charisma he lost during his acrimonious split with the San Antonio Spurs.
When Kawhi Leonard helped bring the Toronto Raptors’ first-ever championship, ironically at the expense of Durant and the Warriors, it was viewed as some sort of a redemption story for The Klaw. People love great narratives so much that it can blur a bitter past, which is what a Brooklyn title could do for Kevin Durant.
Kevin Durant As A Thunder Again
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Speaking of narratives, what would be sweeter than Durant donning a Thunder jersey again? If LeBron James managed to win back Cleveland after The Decision, then Durant certainly could patch things up with Thunder fans, whom he left emotionally wrecked in 2016 when he decided to join forces with Stephen Curry and the Warriors. Back then, Kevin Durant reasoned out that he left the Thunder to seek validation from his peers, per Tim Kawakami of The Athletic.
“At that time in my career, I didn't know how other people felt about my game. And I knew that I was pretty damn good and I knew I worked extremely hard, but I needed that validation from my peers and teams and GMs, people that are really into the game, to really help me feel good about myself and help me feel confident and let me know that what I was doing was working.”
Kevin Durant wanted universal recognition but only expanded the divisiveness surrounding his legacy with his stint with the Warriors. A return flight to Oklahoma City can be an excellent remedy to his polarizing image.
Unless Durant gets traded to the Thunder, the soonest he could rejoin the Thunder is in 2022, when he can exercise the player option privilege of his current four-year deal with the Nets. By opting out, Durant will be forfeiting a sure payout for the 2022-23 season worth $42.7 million. Assuming he walks away from all that guaranteed money to run it back with the Thunder for a cheaper deal, wouldn't that make Durant a shining beacon of benevolence while at the same time hitting the sentimental home run with the public? To complete the parlay, Durant will be 34 in 2022, a prime age for a past-his-prime superstar to tug at the heartstrings of a narrative-thirsty NBA fanbase.
Just imagine Kevin Durant being the veteran leader of an up-and-coming Thunder team. Onions will surely be chopped in OKC. There’s just something soothing about a superstar athlete going back to his professional roots, regardless of the situation.
Kevin Durant-Russell Westbrook 2.0
A sports reunion? Why not?
Despite their split and public antagonism of each other since their Thunder days, Durant and Westbrook will always be linked to each other. You can't talk about Durant's career without mentioning Westbrook. You can't discuss Westbrook's time in the NBA without speaking about Durant.
Between the two, Durant comes across as the villain with how he left the Thunder in Westbrook's hands in 2016. Although the two appeared to have mended their damaged relationship, a Durant-Westbrook reunion, wherever that could be, is certainly going to be a hit for fans.
