Kevin Durant's three-year venture with the Golden State Warriors was one with plenty of ups and downs, even through all the success the team achieved during the first two seasons of his tenure there. Head coach Steve Kerr remembers telling Durant, “I don't want to lose you,” at one point before a loss to the Portland Trail Blazers right before the All-Star break in 2018.
“He had been drifting a bit,” Kerr told ESPN after the 2018 NBA Finals, according to ESPN's Zach Lowe. “He's vulnerable. I felt the need to reconnect.”
There was a natural tension between the player and coach. The coach would say it was “stylistic tension, not personal tension” between Durant's approach and the Warriors' motion game, one Durant could salvage well in-game.
That tension came to a head during the 2018 Western Conference Finals, once the Houston Rockets' physical switching defense tormented the Warriors' offensive flow, baiting them into one-on-one play with Durant at the forefront fo what had been his jam for years with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Golden State avoided losing the series, but Durant was heavily criticized by taking the Warriors' system and virtually throwing it in the trash can during these one-on-one battles.
Still, on the flight back from Houston after a Game 7 win, Durant sat next to president Bob Myers, telling him, “I have never felt more a part of the team,” Myers recalled last year.
But those feelings of team camaraderie weren't enough to keep the two-time Finals MVP with the Warriors as he made up his mind to land with the Brooklyn Nets.
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