When a team that has the reigning, two-time NBA MVP adds another former MVP who is a consensus top five player in the NBA the year after a 73-9 regular season, it would seem more than reasonable to call them a super team. The Warriors, with Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson — all All-Stars this season — belong in the super team category for pretty much everyone in basketball after their 16-1 romp through the playoffs to a title, with one very big exception.
Kevin Durant doesn’t believe they’re a super team. The Finals MVP chooses to call them a group of basketball players that just happen to work “extremely well together.” This is true. They do work extremely well together, but they’re also a super team.
I think it’s fair to call a team with multiple former MVPs still in their primes, with two more All-Stars around them a super team. That is not a controversial take, but apparently it’s one that grinds KD’s gears. That’s likely because Durant has had to become incredibly defensive about his decision to go to the Warriors for a full year now, and he can’t help but take offense at any perceived slight brought his way.
Here’s what he had to say to ESPN’s Chris Haynes about the “super team” moniker being placed on the Warriors.
“First of all, if everybody wanted Steph, he would have been the No. 1 pick,” Durant said. “A lot of people passed on him. A lot of people doubted Steph, saying he wasn’t going to be this good. Klay Thompson, he was just supposed to be this OK shooter in the league, like that’s what you thought of Klay Thompson when he came in. Draymond, nobody wanted him. He was a 6-5 power forward. [They said] he couldn’t play in the league, he couldn’t start in the NBA. Shaun Livingston had a crazy knee injury.
“Nobody wanted him. Nobody thought that he would get back to being Shaun Livingston. Andre Iguodala, he got traded a couple of times. Nobody wanted him. A lot of people didn’t expect these guys to be where they are today. Superteam? No, we just work extremely well together. Coach puts us in position to maximize our strengths.”
If this were rookie year Steph Curry, rookie year Klay Thompson, and rookie year Draymond Green all playing together, than sure, Durant’s logic would hold up. But if you put those three on the market right now, there would be 29 other teams all fighting to land them — also, regarding Iguodala trades, those usually require equal parts a team that wants a player and a team that wants to get rid of him.
There’s no reason for Durant to fight this, other than his frustration with people believing he didn’t earn his title. While I get it, the argument he lays out here isn’t going to change those people’s minds, and eventually no one will care how Durant got his one or two or three or four rings in Golden State.
Durant, much like LeBron James when he left Cleveland for Miami, hasn’t been able to fully embrace a villain role. It’s clear he wants to be liked and wants people to respect his decision. That’s understandable — who among us doesn’t want to be appreciated — but the best way for him to do that is to figure out what LeBron figured out, which is people will come back to you if you are so good that they can’t deny you.
He’s on his way there. We’ve already seen people putting him ahead of LeBron James for the title of best player in the world after these NBA Finals. Another title or two with performances like that, and no one will be worried about whether the Warriors are a super team or not.
