Posted on by Jimmy Sullivan

In Defense of Kevin Durant and Superstars Who Chase Rings

Photo Credit: Soobum Im/USA Today

Kevin Durant made his much-anticipated free agency decision on Monday, signing with the Warriors and spurning the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team he spent the first nine years of his career with (he played his rookie season with the Seattle SuperSonics before the team relocated to Oklahoma City).  For added context, the Thunder led the Warriors three games to one in the Western Conference Finals before dropping the next three games to suffer a heartbreaking elimination and one of the worst collapses in NBA history.

Needless to say, many were not thrilled about Durant’s decision to join the team he lost to in the playoffs.  These were just some of the thoughts of NBA players and pundits alike after Durant announced his “next chapter”:

First of all, there is no reason to compare Durant’s case to Jordan’s. Jordan made $30 million and $33 million in his last two seasons with the Bulls, respectively.  Durant’s deal with the Warriors is for two years and $54 million; he’ll be making less on average than Jordan did in his final two years.  So don’t even talk about greed in this discussion; Jordan and others did just fine for themselves by staying with their original teams.

Secondly, Charles Barkley has no right to say that Kevin Durant is cheating his way to a championship.  If memory serves, Barkley himself wanted to chase a ring at the end of his career and worked a trade to the Houston Rockets to make it happen.  (Hint: it didn’t work out so well.)  But hey, let’s rip a player for exercising his right to play wherever he wants.  That seems very fair.

And why is it a weak move for Durant to go wherever he wants?  It’s not weak to play for a team that won the most games in NBA history a season ago.  It isn’t.  It also wasn’t weak when LeBron James decided to leave Cleveland for Miami in 2010.  The issue with James’ decision was not the decision itself; rather, the issue came with The Decision, the one hour ESPN special that consisted of pure boredom and only yielded about 20 important seconds.  Even then, The Decision wasn’t all bad: James raised nearly $2.5 million for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and an additional $3.5 million through advertisement revenue.  Not bad for a completely pointless hour of television.

But why is there so much hatred about Durant’s move?  Why are so many people up in arms about what they perceive as a “weak move” when the players and the owners negotiated the right to free agency in the Collective Bargaining Agreement?  And why is there discontent over the increased salary cap when all it signifies is more money in the sport?

The way we’ve looked at the Durant signing is indicative of the way sports is covered today.  For example, people such as Stephen A. Smith are essentially paid to say outlandish, bizarre things without any shred of thought whatsoever.  Smith’s comment, and his appearance on SportsCenter that day, show that his argument was based more in emotion and anger than in nuance and contemplation.  There isn’t anything necessarily wrong with that, but it shows that screaming loudly and making your takes as hot and crazy as possible is the best way to get noticed in the sports world.  That’s the monster we’ve created; Smith is just a byproduct of it.  Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

There’s also the other issue of “chasing rings”.  When superstars decide to team up with other superstars to win, we label them sellouts, players who weren’t willing to “do it the hard way”.  Here’s my argument: what incentive is there to do it the hard way when you can give yourself a better chance to win with another team?  While it would have been incredibly rewarding for Durant to win a championship in Oklahoma City, the fact is that it was financially possible and a sensible basketball decision for him to go to the Warriors.  What’s wrong with that?  It’s difficult to compare sports to the real world, but Durant left one job only to find a better opportunity with a greater chance for success.  There’s nothing wrong with doing that.

There is an argument to be made, though, that KD’s move is bad for the rest of the NBA.  That is very true.  To the most casual observer, what reason is there to watch the NBA in the regular season next year?  Luckily, hardcore fans will know that the Dubs will have to gut the rest of their current team to have enough money to sign Durant. This almost certainly means that the team will be worse than they were last year; you can’t go up from 73 wins and there won’t be as good of a supporting cast as there was a season ago.  But with four of the top 20 players in the world on the same squad, a great supporting cast may not be necessary.

But the outrage about a free agent making a decision on where to play basketball next season should not elicit this much outrage.  The only people who have the right to be upset with Durant are Thunder fans. Other than that, people don’t have the right to be this angry.  In fact, shouldn’t KD be applauded here?  In sports, we always talk about prioritizing money over winning and we place a ton of value on championships.  What Durant did in this case was just the opposite: he wants to win and will sacrifice money (and the spotlight) to do so. That shouldn’t be ridiculed; that should be appreciated.

But, in our world of “hot takes” and endless criticism of stars, we apparently can’t appreciate Durant’s self-sacrifice.  Which is a real shame, especially when you consider that it really wasn’t a “weak move” after all.