It’s not even been 24 hours since the Houston Rockets’ 2025-26 season ended, and immediately, Kevin Durant’s team has come under the media’s scrutiny after the Athletic’s Sam Amick and William Guillory released a report that seemingly has painted the 37-year-old veteran’s role in the locker room much differently than what his teammates say he does.
Following the All-Star weekend, a controversy was stirred up on social media regarding Kevin Durant potentially having a social media burner account that had then been exposed to the media. Less than a day after the Rockets’ season ended, the report now brings the social media burner account scandal back into the spotlight.
“Several league sources with close ties to Rockets players indicated the social media situation was a significant distraction, one that was never truly resolved internally,” wrote Amick and Guillory in their report.
“Durant never discussed the matter in any detail publicly, saying only that he was “not here to get into Twitter nonsense.” Privately, league sources said his teammates agreed to keep the matter in-house while focusing on basketball. It is unclear whether Durant ever clarified to his teammates whether the account belonged to him.”
It may have been so during the regular season, but the timing of this report now suggests that the potential impact even spilled over into the offseason. This also suggests that Durant has not created a culture of accountability in the locker room and has never addressed the elephant in the room about the burner accounts.
However, this seems to be far from the truth, in my opinion. One can see what his teammates say about him to the media to get an idea of how strong their locker room bond likely is.
Jabari Smith Jr. spoke out in his support when the story initially came out. Alperen Sengun showered him with praises in his postgame press conference last night.
But it wasn’t just Sengun and Smith Jr. who said good things about him. Even Tari Eason and Amen Thompson spoke about the bond that they have developed with him through the course of the season at their postgame press conferences last night.
“Our relationship, I think it goes clearly beyond basketball. This offseason, we’ll probably be seeing each other. As someone I looked up to, I definitely think I found a brother in KD, so I appreciate him for everything, and I appreciate him for all the game he’s given me this year,” said Eason on Durant.
“Yeah, just you know, watching that, just a great player, you know, just how he leads by example, you know, day in day out, just putting in the work, you know, trying his hardest to get back for this series, for the next series, and I wish we could have held on a little bit longer just to get him back,” said Thompson on the Rockets veteran.
Clearly, both these statements indicate that while Durant may or may not have addressed the social media burner account controversy with the team, his actions have spoken much louder than words to the rest of the team, as they revere him now.
Durant played 78 games in the regular season and averaged 26.0 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.8 assists while shooting 52.1% from the field and 41.3% from beyond the arc.
It is very surprising to see that there is still a question over Durant’s lack of accountability when his actions show how much confidence he has in his team.
From the beginning of the season, Kevin Durant has done nothing but promote the young guys, which helps boost the talented young team’s confidence to a level that truly could make them contenders one day.
Moreover, Durant has committed potentially two more seasons to the Rockets franchise with his $90 million contract extension earlier this season. Clearly, there is no question over Durant’s faith in the talent and future of this team.
We still do not know whether Durant has addressed the issue internally with his teammates or not. But, considering how easily people are ready to pounce on making Durant the villain in any narrative and how many stakeholders would benefit from sabotaging Durant’s team, it is not surprising that they have decided to keep the matter in-house, and he has not directly addressed the situation to the media.
Let me be clear when I say that I do not think there is any substance to the burner account controversy. But since I cannot prove otherwise, I am only considering the possibility of how the team may have handled it if it were true.
If there’s any substance to it, this offseason will probably be the best time to sort this out internally. I highly doubt there would be a confrontation, as Durant’s leadership is more about letting his actions inspire you than his words. But evidently, this young team has accepted Durant as their leader for however long he plans to stay with the franchise.
