Kevin Durant's friend and business manager Rich Kleiman isn't buying that the media ultimately caused his client to move on from the Golden State Warriors.
While Durant faced a pressure cooker in the last year of his stay in the Bay Area, Kleiman won't point the finger at the scribes covering every aspect of that dynasty.
Kleiman told Warriors president Bob Myers that neither the squabble with Draymond Green nor the constant media attention were causes for Durant's departure.
Via Drew Shiller of NBC Sports:
“When I hear the media broke up the Warriors — that's so ignorant,” he said. “It's giving them way too much power. Or that Draymond (Green) and Kevin getting into it in a game — it's ignorant.
“Anybody who wrote that clearly hasn't played competitive sports at any level.”
Unfortunately for Kleiman, he is also part of the media, as is Durant, and ESPN analyst Jay Williams — the trio that forms ESPN+ show The Boardroom.
Williams contradicted every word Kleiman told Myers only a week ago in First Take and even blew up on Tuesday while trying to defend Durant.
“A lot of these players are fans — they watch shows, things trickle into the locker room — it creates awkward situations between players,” said Williams last week. “I think the media — the more time (that goes by) as guys win and they win championships — the media, we're like, ‘Well what else can we talk about? What else can we find to make this interesting? Oh, it seems like there are challenges.'
“And I think those challenges naturally throughout the course of time — that every team faces, but for teams that win at a high level — get blown out of proportion. And I think we saw that trickle into the locker room and that led ultimately to this team separating.”
To sum this up… Williams has never played any competitive basketball. He was not a Parade All-American. He did not win an NCAA title in 2001 or get National Player of the Year honors in 2002 before being drafted into the NBA. He was not inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2017.
Right, Mr. Kleiman?
For what it's worth, Williams has been a contradiction machine ever since he turned to do NBA commentary and chose to protect the interest of his friends in the public eye. His latest one was Tuesday when he claimed Durant didn't know he would leave the Warriors, even well-after the two-time Finals MVP admitted to knowing halfway through the season.
Nice job, guys.
Follow Us
Subscribe