Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant share core NBA fandom beliefs.
Durant and his Oklahoma City Thunder will face off against the Washington Wizards on Tuesday night, a weekday date that has naturally incited questions about Durant’s impending free agency, and whether he will ultimately join the Wizards, his “hometown” team.
Born in Washington and having attended high school in Maryland, Durant has a longstanding connection to that area. It’s always been assumed that when he reaches free agency, the Wizards will be a major player, if only because they can appeal to the sentimental side of Durant’s search.
That’s why you’ll see tons of custom-made Durant Wizards jerseys and signs. When Durant scores, at the expense of the hometown Wizards, most of the audience will cheer because they know the stakes. They’re not stupid. They understand that their team has positioned itself for one of the league’s five best players. So they will cheer with the hope of catching his attention, of showing him what he’s missing. And, well, Durant will not appreciate it.
From Yahoo Sports’ Michael Lee:
Durant remembers the environment he encountered last season when the Thunder made their lone visit last January and Wizards fans with conflicted loyalties fawned over him, holding “KD2DC” signs and wearing Wizards No. 35 jerseys with “Durant” on the back. During one bizarre scene in the arena, a sponsored weather promotion briefly showed Durant photoshopped in a Washington jersey on the jumbo screen in the fourth quarter of the Thunder’s overtime win.
“It was crazy. It was crazy,” Durant said. “It was kind of disrespectful, in my opinion, because you’ve got a great team there already, that deserves your full, 100 percent support. And I wouldn’t like that if I was on that team. And I didn’t like that. But it comes with it nowadays. It’s a part of it.
For what it’s worth, Bradley Beal, whom the Wizards did not extend ahead of the Nov. 2 deadline, in large part because they know that delaying his next contract will give them more flexibility in free agency this summer, is on Durant’s side when it comes to these matters.
Per The Washington Post‘s Jorge Castillo:
“It is disrespectful because he plays for Oklahoma City,” Wizards guard Bradley Beal said Monday. “He doesn’t play for Washington.”
It’s a tough situation, for sure.
On the one hand, there’s nothing wrong with rooting for a player who isn’t on your team. There are good guys who don’t play for your favorite squads, and you learn to appreciate them.
At the same time, the fandom dance of courtship is disingenuous to the whole concept of rooting for a team. You’re essentially cheering for someone else to take the job someone on your team currently holds. That, in theory, isn’t the best look.
But calling it “disrespectful” might be going too far. You can appreciate both your team and a player your team eventually plans on chasing without being a traitor. The key, in my humble opinion, is balance. Don’t lose sight of your core loyalties, and you can root for whomever the hell you want.
