Today Kevin Durant finally made his free agency decision and it was a HUGE one. Durant agreed to a two-year, $54 million deal with the Golden State Warriors including a player option after the first season. Durant did say it would be a basketball decision and while some championed him for getting a guaranteed ring and lauded the Warriors as completely unbeatable, others were upset with Durant for joining forces with not only a team that went 73-9 last season, but also the team that eliminated his from the NBA playoffs. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith was part of the latter group and delivered the expected “Stephen A. rant.”
“I’m viewing it as the weakest move I’ve ever seen from a superstar, plain and simple that’s just how I look at it. It’s not that he’s leaving Oklahoma City, if you’re not happy there, you wanna move on and you wanna grow as a player there’s nothing wrong with that. He’s one of the top three players in the world, he’s a quintessential superstar, he deserves all the credit in the world for the talent that he possesses but the flip side is this: they were up 3-1 in the Western Conference Finals. Not 1, not 2, but 3 different times he was 48 minutes away from getting to the NBA Finals by winning the Western Conference and three times he failed, particularly in game 6 and you depart for the team that beat you? When you’re on the cusp of getting to the Finals yourself and ultimately winning the championship with the franchise that you’ve been with since you come into the NBA? I think it’s incredibly weak.”
He explained why Durant’s decision is worse than the one LeBron James made in 2010. LeBron was highly criticized for leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers and teaming up with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh on the Miami Heat. Stephen A. says LeBron had nobody in Cleveland while Durant had a legitimate championship contender with the Thunder.
What do you think?
