Kevin Durant is in peak Twitter form this off-season. The 2-time NBA Champion has been laying into detractors and haters for the last weeks by responding on Twitter. While he used to have a burner account to tweet his venom out, KD is very open about putting the stuff he has to say in his own name and taking accountability.
Naturally, that lead to a lot of hilarious tweets by KD directed toward notable figures in the basketball world, whether it be players or journalists. KD’s most recent beef is with Stephen A. Smith and a bunch of other journalists.
ESPN has recently been putting Stephen A. in debates with former players like CJ McCollum and JJ Redick, creating a lot of slip-ups where Smith is getting destroyed by these former players. KD decided to reiterate his disdain for Stephen A. by sharing a clip of his interaction with JJ and CJ, saying he is locked in on watching ESPN now that Stephen A. isn’t being paired up with non-basketball minds like Max Kellerman and ‘Mad Dog’ Russo.
Steve can’t beat up on max Kellerman the boxing guy and the new baseball guy “mad dog” or whatever his name is? I’m locked in now https://t.co/06sVFRJv1s
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) June 7, 2022
The quality of basketball discourse will obviously go down if a basketball analyst is being paired up with non-basketball minds, something that ESPN has done on First Take for years because it covers other sports and usually puts together the most entertaining lineups, not the best in terms of sports analysis.
With extremely intelligent NBA players like JJ Redick, Patrick Beverley, and CJ McCollum appearing on ESPN, their expertise has made the show much better to watch, even if they are also falling into hot take traps.
Durant can rejoice in this victory for players, as they are being represented by more people from the brotherhood of the NBA. Hopefully, this leads to a larger improvement in the quality of content across ESPN as expertise can sell more than just the latest hot take.
