A hot topic of debate among NBA fans in the last 48 hours has been Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo’s championship rings. Last night, Giannis Antetokounmpo won his first NBA championship with the Milwaukee Bucks, the team that drafted him in 2013. Some fans believe that Giannis’ championship win with the Bucks means more than Kevin Durant’s two NBA titles with the Golden State Warriors because he ‘did it the right way’.
Durant famously left the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2016 to join Golden State, the team that had defeated them in the 2016 WCF. Durant formed arguably the greatest team of all-time, and won two consecutive NBA championships with the franchise.
Without any shock, one person who has made his feeling somewhat clear on the subject is Kevin Durant himself. KD is notoriously active on social media and constantly looks to silently take part in debates. Yesterday, a fan put out a Tweet saying that there shouldn’t be a devaluation of Durant’s two championship rings just because Giannis won his with the team that drafted him, and didn’t go ‘ring chasing’.
Man all these dumb takes about @KDTrey5 two rings being worse than one of Giannis needs to stop. A ring is a ring, takes great detail and work to focus all those games and win. Stop tryna downplay other great players to hype up another player. Smh
— Court (@Courtsidespeaks) July 22, 2021
The tweet did get a lot of likes, but one of them was none other than Kevin Durant. So he clearly believes that his two NBA titles with the Warriors hold the same, if not more value, than Antetokounmpo’s championship win with Milwaukee.
Durant’s thoughts on this come as no shock, as he has been battling this narrative for a long time. KD has often stated that he doesn’t think it is right to devalue the merit of his championship wins because of the team that he joined. He believes that he was a key member of a championship squad and significantly improved them after joining them.
While there is an argument to be made on the difficulty and integrity of Giannis’ title win, Durant’s success cannot be discredited because of the team he was on. KD was the best player on 2016-19 Warriors and was acknowledged as the Finals MVP both times for his performances.
