Kevin Durant: ‘People hate the fact that I play for the Warriors, and people hate the fact that I’m so damn good at basketball’

After the Heat lost in the 2011 NBA Finals, LeBron James said:

“All the people that were rooting for me to fail… at the end of the day, tomorrow they have to wake up and have the same life that (they had) before they woke up today,” James said. “They got the same personal problems they had today. And I’m going to continue to live the way I want to live and continue to do the things I want to do.”

This sounds like Kevin Durant’s version of that infamous quote.

Durant on Posted Up With Chris Haynes:

I’ve come to the conclusion that people hate the fact that I play for the Warriors, and people hate the fact that I’m so damn good at basketball. They don’t like that combination.

And so, that brings out jealousy, envy. Even if it’s through comments, even if it’s through slick comments through the media or people testing my manhood on TV, they just cannot stand that somebody like me is so successful and doing it a way that they didn’t want me to do it.

So, it’s not my fault, when I say something, you get in your feelings. It’s that you’ve got something underlying against me already. So, no matter what I say or how I approach anything, it’s going to be a problem if I don’t agree with you, because you just don’t like me. You know what I’m saying? And that’s just the facts. A lot of people want to say facts about me, but that’s the facts.

You don’t like that I play for the Warriors and you don’t like that I’m so f—ing good at basketball. And you put those two together, and you get nothing but magic. And it’s just basketball nirvana, and people don’t like that. So, they just jealous of what I’ve got.

And I don’t mind calling you out on your bulls—.

Sometimes, Durant has jumped headfirst into his supervillain status. Other times, he has lamented how has been treated and tried to steer the conversation in other directions, most infamously through burner Instagram comments.

Clearly, joining the Warriors hasn’t been everything Durant expected. The big question: What will he do about it? He can become a free agent next summer, and he can shift the conversation by choosing a new team.

In the meantime, he’s right: People resent his and Golden State’s collective success. The deck is seen as too stacked in the Warriors’ favor. Because of that, people don’t give Durant the benefit of the doubt on anything he says or does. This quote certainly won’t go over well.

That said, no player could get caught posting burner Instagram comments and escape mocking. Durant earned that one. It had nothing to do with preconceived notions about him, though those did stoke the flames.

At least Durant now realizes where he stands. Maybe that will help him find happiness.