Kevin Durant makes his first return to Oklahoma City as a member of the Golden State Warriors on Saturday, and in an interview with ESPN.com’s Marc Stein, he cleared the air on a January USA Today story in which he downplayed the controversy between he and Russell Westbrook as “not real.”
Kevin Durant always downplays his beef with Russell Westbrook
He’s said the controversy isn’t real on more than one occasion.
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
”I was doing an interview with someone and I used the word ‘unselfish’ to describe my teammates here [with] the Warriors and someone asked Russell the question, asked if he heard what I said about being unselfish and he phrased the question as if I was saying that the Thunder and the organization and the team was selfish,” Durant said. “And once I heard that, I was like, ‘They are trying to get in between this thing and make it bigger than what it is.’
“Obviously Russell wasn’t going to hear that [full] interview I had about me just talking about my teammates I have now and someone in Oklahoma City phrased it to him as if I was calling them selfish. It’s that easy. It’s that easy for the media to twist something up and for the media, you know, [to] make a feud between us.”
Durant spent nine seasons with the Oklahoma City franchise, including one with the Seattle Supersonics, before leaving for the Warriors during free agency. The Thunder blew a 3-1 series lead to Golden State, losing the Western Conference Finals in seven games last season. The Warriors then lost to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
During his interview with Stein, Durant touched on the mixed emotions he will feel when stepping foot on the court in front of the OKC fans for the first time since he left over the summer.
“I know they’re going to be rowdy in there, man,” he told Stein, reminiscing on some of the relationships he built and friends he made in Oklahoma City. “I’ve been a part of some of the loudest nights in that arena. So, I know it’s not going to be the friendliest welcome.”
Durant has long insisted the beef with Westbrook isn’t real
The Warriors’ All-Star forward has always maintained that his disconnect with Westbrook is nothing more than so-called fake drama, something he said the two need to talk out as men. He’s classified it as such at least twice since changing teams during the offseason.
In a November interview with Rolling Stone: “This basketball [stuff] is fake, man. It’s not real life. I love it. I go to work every day. I work hard every day. But when you’re talking about off the court stuff, that [stuff] is not real. What would I look like being mad at somebody for 20 years? Or having a feud with anyone for 20 years?”
In a January interview with USA Today: “To be honest, I’m not even focusing on the negative outside noise or the controversy (with Westbrook), because it’s not real; it’s all on the computer. If I start focusing on that, then I start believing what everybody is saying about this situation. It’s not even that bad. It’s really not serious, at the end of the day.”
The beef wasn’t “all on the computer,” though, when Durant and Westbrook failed to exchange pregame pleasantries before their first matchup in Oakland. It certainly wasn’t computer beef when Westbrook scolded one of his teammates talking to Durant (or another Warrior, but probably Durant), yelling “don’t talk to that bitch a**,” in a January Thunder-Warriors matchup in Oakland.
And it absolutely wasn’t computer beef after that game, either, when Westbrook clarified that the two are not on speaking terms.
So as much as Durant wants to downplay the gripes with his old running mate, they’re very real and he’ll have to deal with them, whether he likes it or not.
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