Colin Cowherd claims that Kevin Durant was never the face of any of his teams in the NBA. Durantula has played for three teams, always making a lot of noise wherever he went, lifting those teams’ level.
Well, that is different from being the face of the franchise, as Cowherd explained. The Fox Sports analyst recently discussed the prospect of Durant becoming the face of the NBA. Colin isn’t convinced that KD wants that status since he never was the face of his teams (4:00).
In Kevin Durant’s three stops, I’d argue he’s never been the face of the team. In Oklahoma City, what was his frustration? Management sided with Westbrook. As wrong as they were, they were really wrong. Kevin got frustrated with the coach and the GM, who wouldn’t confront Westbrook, who was very difficult to play with. Kevin was called at one point ‘Mr. Unreliable.’ Westbrook was more popular, then he goes to Golden State and he was their best player. Finals MVP, but the culture was created by Steph. Steph is the Bay area, it was Steph’s team. And then he goes to Brooklyn. Ok, it’s his team. Well, not really. The last two weeks it’s been his team, but in the regular season, the hottest the Nets got was when Kyrie got hurt and Harden took over and were we on this show saying, ‘wait, Harden is a valuable player.’ (…) It’s hard to be the face of the league when three different times you haven’t necessarily been the face of your team.
As Cowherd said, being the best player on your team doesn’t necessarily mean you have to be the face of the franchise, but KD was both for the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Brooklyn Nets. Although Westbrook finished his tenure as probably the best player in the Thunder history, Durant was the face of the squad during his time there.
His decision to sign with the Nets changed the league’s landscape two years ago, and the team has always been KD’s, not Kyrie or Harden’s. Sure, he had to take more protagonism in the past couple of seasons, but even when he was sidelined, Durant was the face of his team. It’s unclear if he’ll like to be the face of the league once LeBron James steps down but saying he wasn’t the face of the Thunder and Nets isn’t right.
