For years, basketball fans thought the Washington Wizards were the favorites to land Kevin Durant if he left Oklahoma City. A native of the nation’s capital, Washington offered Durant the opportunity to play with a killer backcourt in front of his hometown fans.
It turns out that second thing may have actually cost the Wizards a shot at KD. In a new story for The Washington Post, Durant explained that he simply didn’t want to go home and play basketball.
“I don’t want to open up anything in the past, but I really just didn’t want to play at home,” Durant said. “It was nothing about the fans. Being at home, I was so happy with that part of my life — playing at home, being in front of friends, hanging with friends and family every day. That was a part of my life that has come and gone.
“I was like, I’m trying to build a second part of my life as a man living in a different part of the country, just trying to do different things. I did everything I was supposed to do in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, I felt. Now it’s time to do something new. I didn’t want to come back. That’s just my thought process behind it. It had nothing to do with basketball, the fans, the city.
“It was just like, ‘All right, that part of my life I’ve conquered already. What’s next?’”
Looking at things from a basketball standpoint, Washington would have offered Durant an outstanding chance to win a title. But of course, some things are far more important than basketball, and one of those things ultimately kept KD from going home.
Maybe Durant will change his mind later in his career and spend a year or two in D.C. before he hangs them up. We’ll revisit this in, say, a decade or so.
(Via The Washington Post)
