Kevin Durant is still fighting the demons created when he left Oklahoma City for the Golden State Warriors two summers ago. It was a move that didn’t pay off at first, but now it has. And Durant certainly seems happy with the move, one he’s often had to justify to fans and critics alike.
But the backlash he’s received over the following years has certainly manifested itself in strange ways and he’s learned to defend it, but as was reported in a San Francisco Magazine feature about Durant, the decision to go to Golden State didn’t always seem like such a good idea.
The piece is interesting in a number of ways. It discusses Durant’s tech investments and the opportunities that living and playing in that region of the country has presented him financially. But it also includes a moment shortly after Durant had decided to leave Oklahoma City and join the Warriors in Golden State.
Much of the feature discusses the friendship Durant has with Rich Kleiman, who serves as his agent, manager, an business partner. But later in the piece, the two recall a trip to China they took shortly after Durant left OKC and was dealing with the fallout of that decision.
“To have so many people just say, ‘Fu*k you,’ that really does it to you,” Durant said. “Because I truly had invested everything I had into the people I played for…. And for those people that I know and love and trust to turn their back on me after I was fully invested in them, it was just…more than I could take. I was upset.”
That set of emotions created a difficult time for Durant, who felt isolated from both his old and new team and wondered if he had made the right decision. As the story goes, Durant hit “rock bottom” in China.
“We were all messed up on jet lag,” Kleiman says, turning to me, “and I was up at 6 a.m. and he calls me and says, ‘Yo, are you up?’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, what’s up?’ And he’s like [yelling], ‘Why the fu*k did you let me do this to my life?’ And I’m like, ‘Ohh shit, I’m coming over to your room.’”
“That hotel was rock bottom,” says Durant.
Durant got through it, but the impact of that initial backlash and the constant chatter from Thunder fans in the years since has clearly stayed with Durant. The superstars said the “culture” in Golden State and his Warriors teammates have helped, but there are always times you feel truly alone in this life. It almost always makes you do strange things.
