This won't come as a surprise, but Kevin Durant decided to leave the Warriors before last season ended.
The two-time NBA Finals MVP was a guest on the most recent episode of Showtime's "All the Smoke" podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, and was asked when he decided his time with Golden State was up:
"I knew just about the halfway point through the year. I could feel, you know, the separation between the two. Everybody was just waiting on me to make a decision on free agency -- coaches, to my teammates, to the media -- it's like January and I'm like, 'Yo, I'm just trying to hoop.'
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SIGN UP HERE "That's all I want to do is play basketball every day. I came in every single day and kept my head down. I ain't say much, I wasn't too excited about much, so my coaches and teammates thought something was wrong with me. But I was really focused on the end goal, which was to win the third championship in a row.
"My methods not be welcoming to other people, but it's just how I do things -- how I approach the game."
This response won't sit well with many Warriors fans, but the reality is that KD knowing he wasn't going to stay with Golden State is not why the Dubs fell short in the NBA Finals.
The three-peat didn't come to fruition mostly because of the injuries that inflicted the team throughout the playoffs, including KD's calf injury and then subsequent Achilles tear.
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As for Durant's "halfway point" answer -- here's what Marcus Thompson of The Athletic wrote June 30:
Multiple sources have said for months Durant and Kyrie Irving planned on being teammates. Durant wanted them to join the Knicks together while Irving preferred they take over Brooklyn. They are now both Nets.
And here's what Howard Beck of Bleacher Report wrote July 1:
Durant and Irving were going to play together, somewhere, in 2019. That's what they resolved over a series of conversations before this season even began, according to knowledgeable sources.
[RELATED: KD names Splash Brothers as best players he has played with]
Who knows when the actual decision was made, but it's really not important anymore.
Everybody has moved on and that's a good thing.
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