Kevin Durant left the Golden State Warriors after three years and two NBA championships and moved to the Brooklyn Nets in this summer’s free agency. He is not regretting his decision, and in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Durant said that the Bay Area was never his home and never will be.
“It didn’t feel as great as it could have been,” Durant said. “Some days I hate the circus of the NBA. Some days I hate that the players let the NBA business, the fame that comes with the business, alter their minds about the game. Sometimes I don’t like being around the executives and politics that come with it. I hate that.” “We talk about mental health a lot. … We only talk about it when it comes to players. We need to talk about it when it comes to executives, media, fans.”
'I started to realize i'm just different from the rest of the guys'
Kevin Durant on leaving the Warriors: https://t.co/18ynNrzcA8
— The Crossover (@TheCrossover) September 11, 2019
The two-time NBA Finals MVP is still bitter about his exit from the Oklahoma City Thunder, where he played for eight years before joining the Warriors after the 2015-16 campaign.
“People coming to my house and spray-painting on the for sale signs around my neighborhood,” Durant said. “People making videos in front of my house and burning my jerseys and calling me all types of crazy names.”
He cannot comprehend how the people became that pissed off at him because he decided to move and play for another team, despite everything he did for the community.
“Such a venomous toxic feeling when I walked into that arena [after joining the Warriors],” Durant said. “And just the organization, the trainers and equipment managers, those dudes is pissed off at me? Ain’t talking to me? I’m like, ‘Yo, this is where we going with this? Because I left a team and went to play with another team?’
“I’ll never be attached to that city again because of that. I eventually wanted to come back to that city and be part of that community and organization, but I don’t trust nobody there. That s— must have been fake, what they was doing. The organization, the GM, I ain’t talked to none of those people, even had a nice exchange with those people, since I left.”
