Kevin Durant on Current Thunder Roster: It Isn’t as Good as Before

ajnapoleon

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“Players are paid to do their jobs, no matter who’s on the court. And as superstars, you gotta lead what you have. You gotta make them better. Some players might be better than others. Some teams might be better than others. You gotta do your job, and you gotta trust that the front office is going to do their job. It’s hard, though. You know what I’m saying? Because it’s like, sh*t, I want win. Obviously our players aren’t as good as, you know, than they were before. But you have to figure it out.”








This nikka going home to DC.....and as you know going home the hate goes way down:sas1::sas2:
 
Jaylen Tatum

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A five-time NBA All-Star, a four-time scoring champion, a Rookie of the Year, and the league's reigning Most Valuable Player walk into a coffee shop in San Francisco's Mission District as the sun is still burning off the fog, and the cashier says: "Name, please?"
Kevin Durant looks down at her from a vast height, something like relief on his face. Then he turns to me, like: Let me enjoy this.
So I give my name instead. The kind woman behind the counter says the tall gentleman's hot chocolate will be ready momentarily. My coffee, too. Durant says his mom used to wake him up at three in the morning and make him to go to 7-Eleven to get her a coffee. At 10 years old. He was like, Damn, this is what caffeine does to a person? Still doesn't drink it. Prefers hot chocolate—a 26-year-old with the taste buds of a 10-year-old boy.
That's the reputation, right? Basketball freak, a man on the court but still a child off it? Momma's boy. Too nice to hurt anybody, ever.
Well. Not exactly.
Take the conversation we're having right now. Two guys on stools in a coffee shop talking about girls. His heart still not quite right after hurting someone he loved. "I had a fiancée, but...I really didn't know how to, like, love her, you know what I'm saying? We just went our separate ways." Monica Wright, WNBA player, something like a high school sweetheart. One night Kevin got so full of feelings he just up and proposed to her. "We was just hanging out, chilling. And I felt the energy. I felt, I need to do this right now. And I just did it. I was like...We're engaged right now? We're about to get married? So I was just like, cool! I love this girl. But I didn't love her the right way."
Outside this coffee shop, there are multiple millions of people representing multiple millions of dollars—shoe companies, league executives, agents, little kids with big KD posters on their walls—with opinions on what he should and should not be saying at this particular moment. A whole universe bending to be like: Talk about your will to succeed. Your work in the community. How you know what it takes to win.
But what he wants to say right now is this: "I go to sleep at night, like, 'Am I gonna be alone forever?' " A whole ocean of regret. His life too hectic, and too surrounded by money, to trust, let alone love, the next person who comes through that door.
"Am I gonna be alone forever? Am I gonna have kids?"
Almost seven feet tall in a sweat suit, body like God wanted him to be this good.
"I feel like there's no hope. But I still gotta have faith."
A few years ago, he probably wouldn't have said any of this out loud. But he likes himself more than he used to. Likes talking this way. A sad subject, sure, but he's not sad to talk about it. Talking about it is freedom.
···The reigning MVP. Gets picked first or second in the all-galaxy pickup game, depending on how you feel about LeBron. Immortality a championship or two away. Already in that weird place where nothing he says or does belongs just to him. His basic decency—try to find tape of this guy throwing a tantrum, or even rolling his eyes at a coach or a teammate—turned into a flaw (He's too nice to win a championship!) and then, worse, an actual Nike marketing campaign (#KDISNOTNICE). His inner life subject to our feelings of ownership.
For example, the bracingly generous MVP speech he gave last spring. "One of the greatest off-the-floor moments in NBA history," Bill Simmons called it. I agree.
He didn't practice it. Had a piece of paper. Before going onstage, he wrote: "Mom. Teammates."
"Then I had, right under 'Teammates,' there was another bullet point that said 'Russell. [Thunder coach] Scott Brooks. Thank the media. Thank the fans.' "
Gets up in front of the cameras with no real idea of what he's going to say. Looks down at the paper, sees Mom. "And it was like, all right."
I come from a small county outside of Washington, D.C., called PG County....
The tears came pretty soon after that. "I didn't know I was gonna cry. But I never cried as a kid."
He stops. Tells me he just cried today, in fact. "I watched this video about this guy, his son got killed in front of a nightclub in Miami. And he was shouting at his son's murderer and just crying. I just started bawling. And I was just like, man, I've been so emotional since I've grown up. As a kid you're taught not to be emotional. And I feel like I'm starting to let it all out. Every little thing now. So I cried today. And I felt good about it, though. I felt compassionate. I felt, like, loving and caring. I felt good."
He pauses again. "I think, as a nation, we need to cry with each other. As a world, we need to cry with each other. That shows we care."
Anyway, back to the speech. Thanks his teammates, one by one. Saves Russell Westbrook, his Wile E. Coyote cartoon of a point guard, for last, as if maybe he forgot him entirely.
"I fukked with him a little bit on that," the nicest guy in the league says now, laughing.
I know you guys think I forgot Russ. But I could speak all night about Russell. An emotional guy who will run through a wall for me....
He gets to his mom and can't even get the words out. A whole nation wide-eyed at the moment.
You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You the real MVP....
You the real MVP. People repeating it in awe at work the next day. And then in a week, less than a week, people repeating it with heretic glee, joking about it even. It becomes a punch line, something guys on Reddit say to one another. A virtual high five over a comic Vine. You the real MVP, person who actually pays for Netflix.
"I was like, man, that was a real emotional moment for me, and you making a joke about it! Like:Damn. Y'all don't really believe in shyt. You don't have no morals or nothing. You don't care about nothing but just making fun."
How are you supposed to act in the world, when people feel entitled even to a moment like that?
"I was serious as hell saying that, you know what I'm saying?"
The guy who's supposed to be the nicest guy in the league exhales.
"But after a while, it's all good."
What matters is that he said it.
He came offstage and his mom said, "I didn't know you felt that way about me!"
 
PortCityProphet

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he ain't wrong. But he shoulda told the FO to get rid of his coach. Don't matter who they put out there he's gonna eff it up.
 
FAH1223

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daboywonder2002 said:
man last thing dude needs is to be in dc with all those distractions. women, club, more homies, family. Stay in okc
Click to expand...

:stopitslime:

LeBron got all his homies and family in Ohio and he came back

The minute KD signs here, Ted Leonsis going to give him everything he wants just like when Leonsis lured Michael Jordan to DC in 1999. No Abe Polin around here this time.

#KD2DC is happening :banderas:

INSHA'ALLAH :blessed:
 
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