The Golden State Warriors lost their first game with Kevin Durant, a preseason exhibition matchup against the Toronto Raptors in Vancouver, and so this means that they are bad now. Not really, though.
Durant did get off to a rusty start with his new team, rusty start being a fair way to describe just about every NBA thing that happens in October. He shot 2-of-9 from the field for nine points over 19 minutes. Looking demonstrably nervous, everything was a little bit off and stilted for KD save for his first basket as a Warrior, an authorial dunk on a fast break.
Throughout the game, Durant did show signs of how hard to guard he will make this team, though. Despite not making most of them, he got easier shots than we saw from him with the Oklahoma City Thunder, with Steph Curry, Draymond Green and Co. utilizing their unmatched sense of space and ball movement to swing the ball around to another destroyer yet in KD.
There will be a transition period with this team: you don’t add someone as singular and high-usage as Durant and expect it to work well overnight. But as the minutes pile up, so will the moments of unseen basketball brilliance.
