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Kevin Durant Responds to Bob Myers' Comments on Warriors' 2018 NBA Title
May 17, 2020
Kevin Durant was thrilled to win his second championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2018.
Just ask him.
As Henry McKenna of USA Today's For The Win noted, Durant responded to an Instagram post from Sideline Sources referencing a comment from Warriors president and general manager Bob Myers suggesting the team had little joy during the title run in 2017-18.
Durant said the players looked "happy as (expletive)" in the picture that accompanied the post.
"The second time with Kevin [in 2018] it felt like, 'Well, we just did what we were supposed to do, and great job,'" Myers said in an interview with Nick Friedell of ESPN. "It wasn't joy. I'm sure a lot of people felt differently. It wasn't anybody's fault. I think there's just a weight to everything."
It's hard to argue with Durant's assessment of the picture that shows the Warriors players celebrating a second straight title and NBA Finals win over LeBron James' Cleveland Cavaliers.
It's also hard to argue with the results of KD's tenure with the Warriors, which ended in three NBA Finals appearances and two championships in three years. Had he not suffered an Achilles injury during the 2019 playoffs, it very well could have resulted in three championships in three seasons.
Still, the Warriors faced plenty of scrutiny during Durant's time with the team. After all, they were coming off two straight NBA Finals appearances when he joined them entering the 2016-17 campaign, and they suddenly resembled even more of a superteam than they did before the move.
From getting everyone's best shot on any given night to the criticism Durant faced for leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder to join the team he lost to in the Western Conference Finals, Golden State was a magnet for attention.
There were also the constant questions about where Durant would go following the 2018-19 season as a free agent. Draymond Green appeared on UNINTERRUPTED last month and said Durant's refusal to address his future that season put the onus on the other players and made life more difficult for the team.
"What should have happened was Kevin come out and say, 'Hey, man, this is it. So let's do this,'" Green said in the interview (starting around the 36-minute mark, NSFW language). "... You can't just leave the elephant in the room because what happened was the questions came to us."
Championships naturally lead to joy, but there was also plenty of stress for the Warriors when they were the central storyline of the NBA the entire time Durant was on the team.