The saga of Kevin Durant joining the Golden State Warriors as a free agent still lives on, even three years after the fact. Though as Draymond Green sees it, it would have never taken place without Stephen Curry's ultimate approval:
“Steph could’ve easily said, ‘A, I don’t want Kevin Durant here. And B, I’m not getting on a plane and flying all the way to the f***ing Hamptons in New York from California.’ He said neither and did the complete opposite of both,” Draymond Green said of Curry, according to Michael Lee of The Athletic. “For those that don’t know, I’ll make it well known: if Steph said, ‘I don’t want Kevin Durant here,’ the Warriors wouldn’t have held a single meeting. It has nothing to do with Kevin and no disrespect to Kevin, but it has everything to do with what Steph meant and means for this franchise. He has that respect. And yet, he did everything and was the main salesman in the meeting to try and get Kevin here. If Steph said, or Steve and Kevin in this instance said, ‘I don’t want DeMarcus Cousins here,’ he would not be here and it wouldn’t have been a thought.”
The Warriors have been previously criticized for getting Durant by analysts, current and former players, including Richard Jefferson, who recently took aim at the Warriors not “running it back” after the 2016 NBA Finals — savvily ignoring the fact that his very own then-GM David Griffin tried to get Durant as well.
Yet as Green points out, the fact that Golden State was able to line up two top-caliber players and get them to play with one another, unselfishly, speaks a lot about the character of both players and the organization's confidence in them meshing properly:
“So it says a lot about his confidence in himself. And not in a basketball game,” Green said of Curry. “Obviously, we know he is a confident basketball player. When Steph is on the floor, he’s going to do what he do. But it says a lot about his confidence in himself as a man, his confidence in his stardom. His confidence in his brand. That’s the thing that never gets any credit,” Green said. “But yet, if he does not do that, do we ever have three championships? No one will ever say, ‘Steph Curry brought championships here with his unselfishness.’ They’ll only say, ‘Steph Curry brought championships here because of his shot.’ The unselfishness is even bigger than his shot.”
At the time, Curry and Durant were expected to clash due to representing different sneaker brands, but besides one small misunderstanding, the two have remained strong as friends and teammates, seeing an avalanche of success along the way.
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