Frustrating End Spoils Season That Saw Thunder Embrace Kevin Durant's Positivity

OAKLAND, Calif. — Back when the Oklahoma City Thunder were slaying the first giant in their path, upon winning Game 5 in San Antonio earlier this month, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook critiqued teammate Dion Waiters in the postgame locker room for his brand of cologne.

This was Durant and Westbrook, each 27, lecturing Waiters, 24, on the finest colognes and how those invariably are the older editions. It was the NBA's equivalent of some snooty wine-connoisseur examination, though Durant indeed does the whole spray-the-air-and-step-into-it thing even when he's just heading home after a game in Oklahoma City.

It was a fun, warm moment in San Antonio among many this tumultuous season for the Thunder, who finished in no mood Monday night for light topics of any kind.

This second giant, seemingly mortally wounded, instead rose back up and ended what could have been the Thunder's dream season with a 96-88 Game 7 win.

The Golden State Warriors did what the Spurs could not, solving the Thunder's long, athletic defense to take Games 5, 6 and 7 of the Western Conference Finals.

Almost. That's what will mark this season for the Thunder. They almost stunned the defending champs. They almost overcame a sometimes inconsistent regular season. They almost married all of their talent with a mindset capable of overcoming the explosiveness of the Warriors. But in the end, OKC didn't quite have enough.

Ben Margot/Associated Press

So Westbrook left the visiting locker room Monday night before Durant had even gotten dressed, before Waiters had even changed out of his game shorts. The final conversations heard in that Thunder locker room were not about fragrances.

They were just the type that everyone expected to hear all along.

The malodorous prospect of Durant leaving via free agency, probably more putrid to Oklahomans than anything animals might drop on their rural lands, wafted predictably into the air.

"Our focus was on the playoffs," Enes Kanter said after the game when asked about Durant's future. Steven Adams put that in perspective by explaining that avoidance of such a distraction was "why we made it so far."

At the podium during his media session, Durant was asked about his future, with Westbrook sitting quietly next to him. Durant naturally skirted the issue, saying: "I'll think about that stuff, I don't know when."

Durant's maturity was on full display after the game as he congratulated the victors. But even more impressive was the way he set aside his own disappointment to express pride in his teammates' growth.

It came from the same place that moves Durant to go out early at every halftime to warm up and chit-chat when his only teammates out there shooting are Nick Collison, Randy Foye, Nazr Mohammed, Anthony Morrow, Cameron Payne and Kyle Singler.

It came from the same heart that produced that "You the real MVP" moment for his mother in 2014 as he collected the ultimate NBA individual award that has gone Stephen Curry's way the past two seasons.

Things continue to go Curry's way now, but Durant deserves a bigger admiration society than just folks wanting him to choose their team in free agency.

Credit Westbrook for his incredible drive and energy; credit Billy Donovan for fostering an atmosphere in his first NBA season where the stars felt good about being generous and the supporting cast felt believed in.

But more than anything, credit Durant for giving this OKC team whatever it needed all season while not compromising his own greatness.

There's a limit to how much Durant can do with Westbrook, both strong and headstrong, and that limit for Durant is nowhere close to maxing out his potential. Instead, Durant dedicated himself to maxing out this Thunder team's potential.

He truly wanted Westbrook to continue his rise from last season while Durant was out with a broken foot. Durant had the confidence and wherewithal to believe he could come back after a difficult surgery and get his when called upon, fill in gaps Westbrook left and be the calming, battle-tested leader that neither Westbrook nor Donovan could be.

Durant did all that while marvelously handling this free-agent distraction through candor with reporters on any topic, including the fact he doesn't know what he's going to do contract-wise. No leaks to the contrary should be believed.

Durant toed that line between self and team remarkably this season—well enough for his growing team to have beaten both the Spurs and Warriors, and probably the Cavaliers, too, for his first NBA title.

Except the Warriors fought back with greater depth, in a defending-champion way that Durant and Westbrook still do not know.

It feels like forever since the Thunder lost four consecutive games to the Miami Heat in the 2012 NBA Finals. The Thunder were 13-3 that postseason; then the Heat just rolled them, and LeBron James won his first title.

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

OKC hasn't gotten back to the championship round since...which is why the frustrations of Monday night were undeniable.

Durant flat-out yelled at Donovan when the coach pulled him for a breather with Golden State ahead, 63-58.

Yet the joys of the journey to Monday night were real, too.

"Pure love for the game every single night, and that comes from just walking into our practice facility every single day and feeling those vibes and that energy from everyone," Durant said. "I'm just proud of all we've been through this season. We stuck together, and we sacrificed for each other."

For the final three games of the season, all losses, Durant had written atop the toes of his sneakers—facing him, reminder messages meant solely for his eyes—"Have Fun" on the left foot, "Smile" on the right foot.

Such unabashed positivity is easy fodder for mockery, especially with how OKC failed to finish off the Warriors.

It's also the truth of this Thunder season.

They did have fun and smile a lot despite reasons not to, and in that way, it was a real victory for the human spirit.

Not just because of Durant's free-agent uncertainty, but because in February, lead assistant coach Monty Williams' wife was killed in a car accident...and part-owner Aubrey McClendon was killed in another three weeks later...and Waiters' little brother was shot and killed amid street violence a week after that.

Durant is so fond of Williams that he broke down and cried when addressing that accident. McClendon was integral in bringing Durant and the Seattle SuperSonics to OKC. And Waiters became like Durant's little brother this season and got a familial proud-of-you pep talk from him on the court after the final horn.

They did what they could this season.

Adams called it an undeniable feeling of being "emotionally connected."

Maybe that comes out of shared appreciation for assistant coach Darko Rajakovic's incredibly incisive scouting reports.

Maybe it's in the specialty handshakes or dances for every guy on the team; you've seen Westbrook and Payne, but it's underrated entertainment to see Durant and Singler go for it with their two right-hand slaps and sideways bro hug.

Or maybe it's just Russ being Russ. Case in point: After what wound up being the Thunder's last victory of the season in Game 4 over Golden State, Andre Roberson stood at his locker, getting dressed, when Westbrook strolled out first.

This was the night of the pinstriped, cuffed overalls over some star-studded shirt with no socks and a fedora. Roberson watched Westbrook strut by and couldn't help but smile.

How the role players act around or talk about the superstars is a reflection of how comfortable they are with their relative inferiority—and the superstars' superiority.

Many role players would reply to a question about whether it ever gets old to see Durant and Westbrook doing dazzling moves with a stock acknowledgement of how special those guys are.

Adams joked about the stars: "Gets monotonous. You see it every day. ... And see it up close? Same old."

No team requires more buoyancy to beat than the Warriors. Every coach in the league preaches the same thing: Don't get discouraged by their runs. Don't lose hope.

The Thunder almost had enough positive energy to do it.

Adams, the happy-go-lucky New Zealander who lives up to his words about not getting too high or too low, was instead reduced Monday night to the caveman some might wrongly assume him to be.

After OKC's defensive switches led him to be repeatedly duped by Curry's dancing rockets for crushing Golden State scores, Adams could be found punching the seats on the bench in unbridled anger.

It's a lasting image of final failure, but it's not who Durant led this Thunder team to be.

"Everybody left their soul out on the court," Durant had the poise to say at the very end. "We have no regrets."

Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.