When Kevin Garnett won his first championship in 2008, he showed his emotion by screaming “Anything is Possible” in what was the highlight of his career.
When LeBron James won his first championship for his hometown Cavaliers last year, he was in tears while celebrating his greatest moment of his career.
When Kevin Durant won his first championship last night after the Warriors won the NBA Finals with a 129-120 victory over the Cavs, he showed no emotion. His mother showed more emotion than him when she hugged him in the best moment of his career. His conscience told him that he cheapened his championship by joining a star-studded Warriors team rather than winning on his own with the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Yes, Durant won the Finals MVP by scoring five straight 30 points games and averaging 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 5.4 assists. He clinched the award when he grabbed the rebound of Kyrie Irving’s shot and hit a three-pointer in the fourth quarter that gave the Warriors the lead they would not relinquish in Game 3, giving them a 3-0 series lead. But it’s easy for him to do when Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson made his job easy by doing the leg work whether it’s offense or defense.
It is a curse and a blessing that he has to deal with the rest of his life. He doesn’t care and he won’t care. He made that clear when he signed with the Warriors on July 4 last year. If he had any sort of pride, he would have stayed with the Thunder and finish the deal of winning a championship with the Thunder after being a game away from going to the NBA Finals last year. He was this close to having his Thunder beat the Warriors last year, but rather than beat them, he decided to join them.
Some say it’s the American way that Durant exercised his right as a free agent to play for the Warriors. If seeking instant gratification is now the American way, that’s a problem.
That’s exactly what it is now in our country. Everyone wants the easy way out rather than working hard to earn something. It’s about taking shortcuts rather than enduring the process of accomplishing a goal. This starts at secondary school, which kids develop that habit and they apply it to their adult lives. Durant is no different than your average person.
Don’t expect this to change with your modern day athletes anytime soon, if ever. Most of them are not wired to win titles on their own. They want to ride on the coattails of others. With basketball players knowing each other from their AAU days, they don’t have that motivation to beat each other to get what they want. It’s the cultural change we all have to deal with whether we like it or not.
There’s nothing to celebrate what Durant did. It was one thing if he was in the tail end of his career and he needed a championship to cement his legacy, but it’s another to join other stars to win a championship in his prime. It used to be blasphemy back in the day.
If James can be criticized for teaming with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh in Miami, Durant should deal with the same treatment.
For anyone that praises Durant for working well with Curry and Thompson, one can criticize him for not wanting to work with Thunder point guard Russell Westbrook anymore. Durant’s bobos will say that Westbrook was why he had to go. That’s horseradish. It’s on the Warriors star to make it work with his point guard. He didn’t seem interested. That was a sign that he was on his way out.
It couldn’t surprise no one Durant won with the Warriors in his first season. It was bound to happen when playing with couple of great players and good role players. Something had to be wrong for this to not materialize such as bickering among teammates. It wasn’t going to happen since Durant and his teammates pledged to make this work for themselves and to quiet the critics.
It’s laughable that the media is praising him for this accomplishment. It shouldn’t be surprising. We live in a world where we have to be politically correct, and the media is more of a liberal one than a conservative one. It’s hard to believe anyone would root for a star for taking the easy way out.
Watching him hoist the Larry O’Brien Trophy felt empty. It was cheapened. It’s hard to say he is a great player when he had to team up with Curry and Thompson to be a champion.
He will not have to deal with the stigma of not winning a championship anymore, but he can’t possibly say he had to earn it himself, even if he played well in this year’s postseason.
Even James knew for him to change the narrative and get critics off his back, he had to go back to Cleveland and finish the deal of winning a championship there. That’s what made his championship special last year. He got it done by engineering a comeback to win the Finals after a 3-1 deficit against the Warriors.
Maybe one day Durant will come to his senses that he has to go back to Oklahoma City and make it work with Westbrook for him to be taken seriously as a champion.
