The thought of enduring all the endless speculation and recriminations surrounding Kevin Durant‘s looming free agency for another nine months fills us with a nameless dread. But such is the state of the league, where both players and teams shamelessly and aggressively recruit one another in the Sisyphean quest for NBA supremacy.
Still, sometimes, it goes too far. That’s what happened last January when Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder returned to the former MVP’s hometown for a road game. The Wizards’ public relations team got a little overzealous when trying to win his affections when, in the middle of the game, they actually flashed an image of Durant across the Jumbotron wearing a Wizards’ uniform.
Depending on who you ask, the Wizards are the odds-on favorites to land the four-time scoring champ if he does indeed decide to leave Oklahoma City after this season. But they certainly didn’t endear themselves to the D.C.-area native with that stunt. Here’s what Durant told Sam Amick of USA Today Sports, about the incident in a recent interview:
“(The Jan. 22 visit) was kind of disrespectful, in my opinion, because you’ve got a great team there already that deserves your full 100% support,” said Durant, who — among many other things — was featured on the Wizards’ jumbotron wearing a Washington jersey during the game. “I wouldn’t like that if I was on that team. I didn’t like that, but it comes with it nowadays.
Even worse, they ended up alienating their own players while they were at it. According to Anthony Slater of The Oklahoman, Wizards guard Bradley Beal wasn’t amused by the team’s desperate tactic.
Bradley Beal on the response to KD in DC: "It is disrespectful. He plays for Oklahoma City, not Washington."
— Anthony Slater (@anthonyVslater) November 9, 2015
So it goes. The Thunder will play the Wizards at home on Tuesday in (thankfully) their only game in Washington this season. It’s unlikely the Wizards’ PR staff will be as brazen in their recruiting practices this time around, but a certain amount of hoopla is probably inevitable.
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