Peyton Manning roasted Kevin Durant at the ESPYs, with a little help from the Final Five.
In Manning’s opening monologue, he made light of Durant’s decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors last July, one month before Durant won his second Olympic gold in Rio.
“I love that the Final Five won the most Olympic medals of any U.S. women’s gymnastics team ever,” Manning said Wednesday night. “And our gymnastics team was so dominant that Kevin Durant told me that he wants to play for them next year. And I got to tell you, I don’t think you’d start for that team, Kevin. Russell Westbrook, what do you think?”
Durant sat stone-faced, appearing to be displeased at being the butt of the joke. Westbrook, too, gave little reaction after losing Durant as a teammate the previous year.
Aly Raisman later reached out to Durant on Twitter.
Manning’s first athlete joke of the 10-minute monologue was about Ryan Lochte, whose Rio gas-station incident was also fodder for Jimmy Fallon at the MTV Video Music Awards one week after the Olympics.
“The ESPYs finally got it right this year, because normally some comedian or entertainer or Matthew Perry comes up here and just tears the athletes to shreds,” Manning said. “I know what some of y’all are thinking, right? [Pro wrestler] John Cena hosted the ESPYs last year, and he’s an athlete. John Cena is an athlete the same way that Ryan Lochte is a reliable witness. It’s just not an accurate statement, right? [Michael] Phelps, am I right? I’m right, yeah, thank you Phelps.”
Lochte was not believed to be in attendance. When the camera panned to Phelps, he hid his face while laughing.
In 2013, Lochte was the butt of a Jon Hamm ESPYs monologue joke, which also caused Phelps to crack up.
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.@KDTrey5 YOU CAN JOIN OUR TEAM ANY TIME YOU WANT. Just don't be so salty about it ;) Lol great meeting ya. Congrats on the award & success!
— Alexandra Raisman (@Aly_Raisman) July 13, 2017
