Wednesday Bolts – 7.6.16

Howard Beck of Bleacher Report: “Ultimately, he got frustrated and felt that they had

plateaued,” said a person with insight into Durant’s thought process. “[Donovan] came in, and he still had the same issues that he had with Russ under Scotty. The offense didn’t change much. He still had to take a ton of contested shots every game; and that’s when he had the ball at all.”

Berry Tramel: “Kevin Durant isn’t the man we thought he was. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Any misconceptions are on us as much as on Durant. But we thought Durant was emotionally invested in the Thunder, if not the entire city and state, and we thought Durant had the competitive fire to lead a championship team rather than follow in the wake of the Warriors. We wanted to believe the narrative that Durant not only was a once-in-a-generation player, he was a once-in-a-generation person. Turns out Durant was ready to leave OKC, the franchise and the place, and was a typical Millennial. We thought he was our Dirk Nowitzki. Our Tim Duncan. Instead, Durant, born in 1988, a full decade after those NBA icons, seeks a ring through opportunity, rather than accomplishment.”

Here’s a thing I wrote yesterday.

Zach Lowe of ESPN.com: “If Westbrook re-signs next summer, the Thunder will be feisty enough to soften the blow of Durant’s departure — and of Harden’s presence elsewhere on a below-market extension that runs through 2018. But these Thunder without Durant aren’t title contenders, and Westbrook’s eyes will wander. Other teams will start calling.”

This is a situation Thunder fans know pretty well, but Brian Windhorst did a great job laying it out there yesterday.

Charles Barkley: “Kevin Durant is trying to cheat his way to a championship.”

Russ Bengston: “The Warriors and Durant both know this, and both decided to do something about it. It would have been easy for Durant to stay in Oklahoma City and give it another try with Russell Westbrook; it would have been just as easy for the Warriors to keep Harrison Barnes—at great expense—and retain the core of a team that has won 140 games over the past two seasons. No one would have faulted either for doing so. Instead Durant and the Warriors joined forces, bringing scorn down on both. But if it brings championships, that’s all that we’ll ever remember.”

Rodger Sherman of SB Nation: “Like James, Durant is attempting to form a superteam. But superteams are not a new feature of the NBA. The history of the league is not one of parity. Bill Russell’s Celtics completely dominated the 1960s, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird went head to head for the entirety of the 1980s, and then came Jordan and the Bulls. Today’s relatively fluid NBA, in which four teams have won championships in four years, is the exception to the dynastic nature of the league. Teams of the past stayed dominant because player movement wasn’t allowed. Unrestricted free agency as we know it didn’t exist until 1988. The reason players in the 1960s and 1970s didn’t switch teams willy nilly isn’t because they possessed superior moral fiber. It was because they basically couldn’t.”

Claire McNear of The Ringer: “On the flip side: Will Durant’s departure allow Donovan to prove once and for all that he belongs in the league’s next wave of coaching stars? During the Thunder’s playoff run, he was hailed for showing that success in the NCAA can translate to the NBA. He has frequently been compared to Brad Stevens, who took over the Celtics in 2013 after six seasons spent at Butler, and has already won more playoff games (11) than his Boston counterpart (two). Before Donovan took the job at Florida, the Gators had made just five NCAA tournament appearances; Donovan turned that program into a powerhouse, and it’s conceivable that this Thunder position becoming a project of sorts might hold some professional appeal.”

David Dennis of The Undefeated: “The recent, suspenseful process of Durant’s decision to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors demonstrated just how little we understand about what motivates people who sit at the 0.0000001 percent of any given field. For most of the past year, pundits have expected Durant to re-sign with Oklahoma City for a year — to take the most money and move on to another team next year. But the thing the rest of the world doesn’t understand is how long a year of waiting is for someone who expects greatness. Another year of holding in Oklahoma City would mean another year of maybe not having the best team around him and maybe not having a long-term star by his side and maybe another year of getting bounced from the playoffs.”

David Aldridge of Bleacher Report: “If it’s possible to create and keep these kinds of teams together, what will smaller revenue-generating teams do? Going forward, can an Oklahoma City compete? I don’t mean draft well or make astute trades…Presti has done well in those regards more often than not over the years. But can Oklahoma City—with its rabid fanbase, solid management and ownership—attract difference-making free agents to play there going forward? That will be much more important than Durant’s partnership with the Splash Brothers.”