The Phoenix Suns picked up their fourth straight win on Saturday night in Portland, improving to 5-1 on the young season to remain tied for second in the West with the Warriors, a game back of the NBA’s last remaining undefeated team, Oklahoma City.
It’s the second season for the Suns star trio being all together, and that has, historically, been when those teams take a leap if they ever do. The first year is figuring out how it all should work and learning how not to step on each other’s toes, and then the second year is when we find out if the ceiling really is as high as it appears on paper. For that reason, the strong start to this season is a very good sign for the Suns, even if there’s still a long way to go this season in confirming their status as a top threat in the West.
An additional subplot to this Suns season is that of Kevin Durant’s reputation, as the future Hall of Famer still gets nagged about whether he’s an effective leader, largely because his greatest team success came when he joined the Warriors where it was clearly Stephen Curry’s team. Charles Barkley has prodded at KD pretty consistently, calling him a follower and bus rider, while Stephen A. Smith regularly takes aim at Durant’s leadership as the thing he lacks compared to other top stars of his generation.
Durant and his Suns teammates and coaches have scoffed at that notion, and on Saturday night Durant was again asked the leadership question by Doug Haller of The Athletic and had some pointed words for Stephen A., calling him “a clown.”
“Yeah, Stephen A., I don’t understand how people even listen to Stephen A.,” he told The Athletic. “I’ve been in the league for 18 years. I’ve never seen Stephen A. at a practice, or a film session, or a shoot-around. I’ve never seen him anywhere but on TV talking s— about players. … He’s a clown to me. He’s always been a clown. You can write that, too.”
Durant went on to note that he isn’t taking a different approach or trying to be more vocal this year, insisting that he’s going about his business as always. He bristled, in particular, at commentary from the likes of Smith that he is aloof and distant from his teammates, which his Suns teammates push back on as well when asked by Haller.
“To say that I’m just sitting here, you paint this picture of me coming into the locker room, not talking to my teammates, quiet, not talking to my coaches,” Durant said. “Like, come on, man. It’s just ridiculous.”
Durant is far from the only NBA star who gets frustrated by Smith’s commentary and, particularly, when he offers up sourced reporting despite not being on the ground covering the league on the road regularly. Smith certainly knows a ton of people in and around the league, but players and fans are constantly skeptical of what he says, largely because it often feels his opinion and any reporting get blended together all into one. That makes it tough to separate the two, especially because he can’t help but go over the top with how he presents things. Durant has voiced his annoyance with Smith in the past, but this is some of his firmest criticism that hasn’t been levied on Twitter.
