WHAT. IS. GOING. ON? The moment Kevin Durant’s Players’ Tribune piece published on Monday (when we all heard he was going to join the same team that knocked him out of the Western Conference finals), the reaction was loud and visceral. The timing of the decision, July 4, and the enormity of its implications league-wide, immediately called to mind the last big free agency announcement that seemed to put the whole NBA on its head. That’s right, LeBron James’ now-infamous Decision that he was “taking his talents to South Beach.”
The oft-mocked and repeated capital D, “Decision,” is the only other comparison to KD’s July Fourth bomb. Both feature superstar players at, or near, their primes. They both feature MVPs considered by any thinking basketball fan as one of the best three players in the league. They both feature stars leaving the only team they’ve ever known in their NBA careers to join forces with a stronger team somewhere else. They both had players, fans, writers, and reporters wondering what in the hell just happened. They’re the two biggest free agency decisions in NBA history, so it only makes sense we figure out which of them was bigger. Here you go.
Kevin Durant To The Warriors (By Jack Winter)
Kevin Durant walked off the floor at Oracle Arena having just failed to win a championship yet again. That part wasn’t necessarily surprising; the Oklahoma City Thunder have only advanced to the NBA Finals once in their eight-year history, after all. But the circumstances behind the collapse of Durant’s team were unique compared to year’s past, and certainly didn’t suggest that he’d return to Oakland six months later wearing the home team’s jersey.
Would Durant really spurn the Thunder in free agency for a team they should have beaten? Apparently so. But that’s not the only reason why his decision to sign with the Golden State Warriors is the most shocking player-movement decision in league history.
In the lead-up to his long-awaited foray into unrestricted free agency, Durant spoke openly of wanting his jersey retired in Oklahoma City and how watching the town grow from 2009 to 2016 almost meant more than winning a championship ever could. He also lambasted the concept of super-teams immediately after LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade with the Miami Heat in 2010.
Furthermore, GM Sam Presti re-shaped his roster on draft night by trading Serge Ibaka for Victor Oladipo, Damontas Sabonis, and Ersan Ilyasova, addressing the Thunder’s long-time depth issues while hedging against the chance of Ibaka leaving in free agency next summer. That Durant counts the dynamic Oladipo as a close friend seemed to increase the likelihood of him re-signing with the Thunder, too.
There was nothing other than rumors, conjecture, and hope of the league’s most burgeoning fan base to suggest Durant would leave Oklahoma City. He not only sacrificed his time-earned reputation as an old-school superstar in doing so, but also broke the hearts of so many fans who he grew to call neighbors.
None of this is to say Durant made the wrong choice, by the way. He’s entitled to do what he deems is best for his life regardless of any potential for negative indirect fallout. What the altogether backwards and incredibly unique context of his move makes clear, though, is that Durant signing with the Warriors is the most shocking free agency decision of all time.
LeBron James To The Heat (By Spencer Lund)
In June of 2010, LeBron James very publicly announced he would be taking his many “talents” to “South Beach.” It was a free agency announcement that rocked the foundation of the NBA and caused a dramatic work stoppage the following summer as owners in flyover country scrambled to institute stricter salary cap measures so this never happened again. Leaving aside the geographical problems with James’ oft-mocked utterance (American Airlines Arena is located downtown along Biscayne Bay), the television spectacle aired on ESPN and MC’d by Jim Gray was a travesty of untold proportions on levels well beyond where James would be playing basketball the next season.
In fact, while James’ Decision 2.0 four years later (when he penned a letter to the world — via SI’s Lee Jenkins —- declaring he was headed home to the Cavs) might’ve felt like he had come full circle, there were still doubts. The people of Cleveland still held back from fully embracing their Prodigal Son’s return until he had A) actually brought a title to Cleveland, or B) made it clear he was going to be around for good this time: No more one-and-one deals with a player option after the first year. On that last point, we won’t really get an answer until next summer when he’s expected to finally sign that sweetheart of a five-year max when the cap is at its historical apogee, flush with the TV-rights money.
But, it took an otherworldly NBA Finals performance, after going down 3-1 against the greatest regular-season team in NBA history, to finally move everyone in Ohio past LeBron’s original Decision. A Decision, mind you, that’s so big we still capitalize it and everyone knows what we’re talking about. James’ megalomaniacal spectacle and infamous utterance at the Boys and Girls Club was the biggest PR disaster since Justin Timberlake ripped too much of Janet’s top off as hundreds of millions were watching on TV.
Has there been backlash about Kevin Durant’s decision to join forces with the best regular season team in history? Yeah, of course. But it’s not like the vitriol aimed at James after he so publicly jilted his hometown team. It was the shock of what he said and the forum he used that seals it as the biggest free agency decision of all time.
It’s not like there weren’t rumors of Durant’s interest in the Warriors before his Players’ Tribune piece dropped on July 4th. James’ decision to head to Miami broke on Twitter mere minutes before he made his announcement, but back in 2010 not as many people were on Twitter, and most certainly didn’t know Chris Broussard had just gotten the scoop of his life.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise that what followed was a country-wide backlash of burned jerseys, Comic Sans-penned letters talking of betrayal in the most hateful language possible, and the glistening ire of an entire basketball nation. LeBron became the biggest NBA villain immediately after years spent as the Association’s preeminent hero.
There will never be anything as big as James’ first decision simply because no NBA star will ever be that foolish. Hopefully, Kevin Durant knows that, too, and believes he’s just as capable at rehabbing his image.
#Ringz, indeed.
