To the surprise of no one, Thunder fans weren’t exactly kind to Kevin Durant during pregame introductions on Saturday night. Durant is making his return to Oklahoma City after leaving the team for Golden State in free agency over the offseason, which meant emotions were high heading into the game.
Prior to the tip, we knew that Durant expected it to be so bad that he hired extra security, although there’s no word on whether or not it was necessary. What we do know is that he was walking into an especially hostile environment – most notably, Thunder fans made these vicious “KowarD” shirts. Thunder fans also thought it would be fun to torment Durant prior to the game, as they made signs, dressed like cupcakes, and brought snakes to the arena to get a point across to Durant.
The pregame introductions weren’t the first chance Thunder fans got to boo Durant, even if they were the loudest boos of the night. The Oklahoma City faithful got the chance to let Durant hear it when he ran out with the rest of the Warriors for warm-ups.
Durant was not going to get a warm embrace from the fans of his old team, but this is still probably a louder repudiation of the former MVP than anyone expected. While it sounded loud on television, it was raucous inside the stadium.
a very unwarm welcome for Kevin Durant pic.twitter.com/Ux4j89QtXS
— tim cato (@tim_cato) February 12, 2017
Maybe Durant will shut them up with his play on the court, or maybe he’ll have a rough night because the fans are on him all game and don’t let up. Either way, this is going to be an emotional night in Oklahoma City, probably because everyone watched that video about Durant and Russell Westbrook’s friendship that has been going around over the last few days.
