Athlete House: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook settle their beef in ‘The Sims’

The end of a season is time for reflection, personal growth, and settling old differences. One lingering feud still puts a dark cloud over an old friendship: Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. KD left the Thunder on bad terms, Russ doesn’t like his old teammate as a result, and this sports beef is a sad story of what could have been. Now it’s time to fix it.

Athlete House is the new reality TV show you didn’t know you needed. Here at SB Nation, we’re putting athletes that have beef together in a house and not letting them leave until they’ve repaired their relationship. How are we making this happen? In The Sims 4.

Durant and Westbrook meet outside a lavish house that has been built specifically to their needs as elite athletes. OK, so I downloaded Elsa’s palace from Frozen and threw some exercise equipment in it. That part isn’t important. What matters is how we get these fractured souls back together.

The door was locked from the outside so there would be no escape. These two would settle their difference inside Athlete House until their relationship was rekindled. Russ immediately ran to a machine in the kitchen and began making cupcakes.

This was a pretty tactless way to start their relationship, and it immediately had an impact. The pair ignored each other for much of the day. Durant ran on a treadmill for a while, while Russ watched some TV. The cupcake incident showed that making them friends again would be a process.

Angry for much of the day, KD finally cheered himself up with a playful bubble bath.

But there was a small ember smoldering under the anger. We didn’t see if often, but when the former teammates sat on the sofa together and watched table tennis, there were signs they might be able to figure this out.

As the afternoon wore on, there was a key problem: A lack of interaction. Durant stared at his phone a lot, and while it seemed Westbrook wanted some sort of dialogue with Durant, it just wasn’t happened.

We needed an intervention.

Changing the dynamic is healthy in any relationship — especially when it comes to conflict resolution. What we needed was a third member to enter Athlete House to shake things up and get this back on track. There was only one man for the job.

Darth Maul, of course!

He would be a calming force to bring balance to this relationship, and his impact was felt immediately when he held a house meeting in the bathroom.

Later that evening, Maul took reigns of the house and came up with a fun activity. KD, Russ, and Darth Maul would form a fun, family band to lighten the mood.

Nobody was very good at their instruments, but it helped create a camaraderie that wasn’t there before. It was magic.

It seemed the second day in the house would start with more problems when Russ woke up and immediately made cupcakes for breakfast again.

Despite Maul’s best efforts, Westbrook wasn’t able to forgive KD yet. He wanted to keep rubbing it in that Durant was soft. He continued to make cupcakes under his nose and make all of Athlete House smell his sweet treats.

Durant threw shade at Russ’ attempt by eating a rotten cupcake on a love seat RIGHT next to him, which really upset Westbrook.

But in a lot of ways, this was symbolic. The cupcake was a metaphor for how their relationship had soured, and Durant was saying, in his own way, that he was ready to swallow the beef.

Later that day they shared a conversation about boxing, and the rain.

There was one lingering problem. Despite all the help Darth Maul provided the pair initially, he suddenly was becoming a third wheel. He butted his way in their conversations, dominated the space, and made everything about him. While his efforts as a mediator will always be appreciated, Darth Maul (who at this point had removed his face paint and refused to put clothes on) had to be put in a small murder room.

This switch immediately improved the mood of the house, and we began to see a relationship between Durant and Westbrook truly blossom. Their shared a laugh in the gym, and later that night slept like babies, dreaming of working out and whoopee cushions.

Darth Maul is a soiled mess in the murder room. The less we speak about him, the better. joke about how he lost his legs?

We had now been over 24 hours without a negative moment between KD and Russ. Things were finally starting to look up. Then, at 7:51 a.m. on Wednesday morning ... it happened.

It took 71 hours and 39 minutes of being forced to live together in a locker house for Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook to put aside their differences, forget their beef, and become friends again. They may never play for the same team again, but they have a bond that will last a lifetime.

Darth Maul died of starvation in the kill room three hours after the pair hugged because I forgot about him.