Kevin Durant's Texas Return for Suns vs. Spurs Excites Fans Despite Wemby Injury

Thursday was a homecoming for Kevin Durant.

That is because his Phoenix Suns faced the San Antonio Spurs at the University of Texas' Moody Center in Austin. Durant played one season for the Longhorns and was greeted accordingly by the crowd even though the Spurs were technically the home team inside their own state.

Durant's return was a welcome storyline for a game that lost some star power before it even tipped off.

San Antonio announced Thursday that Victor Wembanyama is expected to miss the rest of the regular season because of deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder. It was a crushing blow for a team that entered play having lost three of the last four with fading hopes of making a late run into the playoff picture.

The Suns are also looking to turn things around after struggling with consistency for much of the season, but the focus was on Durant's return to Texas for Thursday's game.

And that drew plenty of social-media reaction:

That Durant was a focus for his return to Texas came as no surprise. After all, his 2006-07 season with the Longhorns was a dominant one that saw him win the Naismith Award, Wooden Award and Associated Press Player of the Year.

He was also a consensus All-American and the Big 12 Player of the Year on his way to becoming the No. 2 overall pick in the 2007 NBA draft after just one year in college.

Despite having a future Hall of Famer leading the way, that Texas team still made it to just the second round of the NCAA tournament before it was eliminated by USC in a blowout loss. Still, Durant did more than enough to be remembered as a Texas legend.

The school didn't waste much time celebrating him and retired his jersey just two years later during halftime of a game in 2009. At the time, he was just the third player (T.J. Ford and Slater Martin) in the program's 103-year history to have his number retired.

Longhorns fans have surely followed his legendary professional career ever since, and he has built a resume that includes two championships, two NBA Finals MVPs, a league MVP, four scoring titles, a Rookie of the Year, 11 All-NBA selections and 15 All-Star Game nods.

No wonder they came out to support him Thursday.