Kevin Durant is on the verge of moving teams once again, having requested a trade from the Brooklyn Nets and actively looking to join another team for the coming season. While several suitors have been mentioned, there is an interesting rumor going around that KD might end up back where he won his 2 NBA championships, the Golden State Warriors.
And it’s quite poetic, considering that it was 6 years ago, on July 4th, that Durant made his infamous announcement that he was joining the Golden State Warriors and leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he had spent his entire career till then. The decision was widely criticized, considering that it created what is arguably the most stacked superteam the NBA has ever seen.
Today in 2016 pic.twitter.com/lXgOJPW2fo
— StatMuse (@statmuse) July 4, 2022
Durant and his OKC team had gone toe-to-toe with the Warriors the season before, nearly beating them in the Western Conference Finals before collapsing and surrendering a 3-1 lead. The Warriors were the winningest team in NBA regular-season history the season before he joined them, too, winning 73 games behind their elite trio of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green.
While superteams had existed before, perhaps no player of Durant’s caliber in their prime had moved to join the direct rivals that had beaten him the season before. His decision changed the NBA in many ways, with it becoming apparent that the culture of expecting superstars to win championships come what may have ensured that stars would end up making moves like these.
And what perhaps riled the critics up more than anything is that it worked just as expected. The Warriors won the next two NBA titles, with Durant claiming the Finals MVP in both of those seasons. KD, Curry, and Klay Thompson were simply unstoppable. Durant averaged 25.8 points, over 7 rebounds, and over 5 assists in 3 seasons with excellent efficiency for Golden State.
It is easy to look back at the situation and criticize Durant for making the move, but the pressure on him to win a title at the time was enormous. There are many that will disagree with the team he joined and things like that, but at the end of the day, Durant is a two-time champion and two-time Finals MVP, something that no one can take away from him.
