Stop what you’re doing.
Stop whatever you’re doing. Doesn’t matter if you’re cooking, rocking your baby to sleep or rescuing gaggles of talking seagulls from a burning building. Stop it. Stop all of it. You’ll want to take this in.
Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant apparently worked out together.
Gasp.
Eric Pincus of BasketballInsiders.com was the one who brought word of Melo and KD’s secret, UCLA-based powwow:
A trusted friend tells me Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant worked out today at UCLA in the men's gym.
— Eric Pincus (@EricPincus) August 27, 2014
Oh. Em. Gee.
What does this mean? Will Durant be signing with the New York Knicks in 2016? Will he be signing with the Los Angeles Lakers knowing full well Melo plans to force a trade to Tinseltown as well? Is Melo trying to figure out a way for him to play for the Oklahoma City Thunder?
This has to mean something. It can’t just be some innocent exercising among NBA superstar friends. There is some big, underlying ulterior motive that portends the future and inevitably shifts the entire league’s balance of power.
That’s what you would say if you didn’t know any better. We do. This means nothing. Or virtually nothing.
Players work out together quite frequently. Believe it or not, most of those skill-honing sessions don’t end with said players joining forces to form the next superteam and dynasty. That this is even worth mentioning kind of speaks to how psychotic we basketball consumers are. We want to know when things like this happen, when basketball confabs are held, even if they mean nothing. And even if we know they mean nothing.
Mark D. Smith-USA TODAY Sports
Something as trivial as this shouldn’t need an anonymous source or friend. Hell, both Melo and Durant could be free agents right now and the origination of this information shouldn’t, in theory, need to be veiled in mystery and secrecy for his or her own protection.
And yet that’s exactly what needs to happen, because stuff like this is considered valuable news. Think of what happened early in July, when it was reported that Kobe Bryant, Kevin Love and Anthony worked out at UCLA together. The world—both on and off Twitter—went batshit crazy. What did this mean? Was Anthony signing with the Lakers? Were he and Love preparing to take massive pay cuts over the next two years in hopes of bringing a title back to Los Angeles? Would LeBron James join them? Would Durant, too? Would they all sign for the veteran’s minimum?
The “report” was later debunked. Dreams were crushed, a theoretical dynasty was destroyed. This hangout meant something, and then suddenly, it didn’t. It didn’t even exist.
But even if it had, it still shouldn’t have meant anything. Just like Anthony and Durant’s apparent practice shouldn’t mean anything. They probably played some basketball, lifted some weights, did some yoga and talked about all the different kinds of celery, but that’s it.
Don’t expect these little get-togethers to be, or mean, anything more.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
