Kevin Durant cleaned up in his second season with the Golden State Warriors. When the dust settled on Friday night, Durant had won his second NBA title and his second straight Finals MVP award.
The resounding Game 4 win made it clear that the Warriors were the better team in a series many NBA fans have grown used to over the last four years. The Warriors have now beat the Cavaliers in three of four NBA Finals, and with Durant in the lineup, it seems beating the Warriors is the playoffs is a near-impossible task.
That’s frustrating for some, and after the win a number of people complained that Durant joining the league’s best team ruins the competitive balance of the league. But Durant had a pretty simple answer for anyone who says he ruined the league: He’s not paid like someone who dictates the course of the entire NBA.
Durant told Yahoo Sports on Friday night that he’s not worried about what it means for the league that he’s on the Warriors because it’s not his job to be concerned about it.
“My responsibility is to my skills. My responsibility is to myself,” Durant told Yahoo Sports. “I’m not worried about the NBA. That’s their job. They make too much money. They ain’t paying me enough to dictate the NBA. I should be making more money if all that’s on me. My responsibility is to whatever team I play for. All that other stuff, that’s on y’all.”
Durant is basically saying it’s the commissioner’s job to stop something like this from happening if it were truly unfair, and he’s right, it’s not up to him to decide if the league is ruined or damaged somehow. He was free to join whatever team he wanted, and the league made it possible with a big jump in its salary cap the summer he hit free agency. While he has, indeed, taken less money to stay in Golden State, he’s not alone.
Whether needs to be done about that, well, isn’t his job either. It doesn’t stop people from talking about Durant’s choice and what it’s done to the league. But it’s clear he doesn’t care what anyone is saying about him. He’s now got the trophy case to justify his decision.
