Still got a problem with Kevin Durant leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors?
Carmelo Anthony is here to set you straight.
From the New York Post‘s Marc Berman:
Carmelo Anthony is not resentful Kevin Durant didn’t strongly consider New York, and the Knicks star said fans should lay off Durant for making the decision to join the superpowers of Golden State.
Anthony spent a late June weekend with Durant in New York before free agency began. Those get-togethers came amid the U.S. Olympic team gathering for its introductory press event in Harlem.
“I knew he was meeting with [Golden State],’’ Carmelo Anthony said. “I knew they were on the schedule. Just talking to him and being around him, he’s happy and at peace with that decision. And everyone else should be at peace with that decision. If he’s at peace, everyone else should be at peace.”
This is coming from the star player of a New York Knicks team that was jilted from the Durant sweepstakes pretty early on. The 2013-14 MVP didn’t even grant Phil Jackson and friends a meeting—even though he was holding court right in their backyard, in The Hamptons of Long Island, New York.
Not that the Knicks went down quietly. Anthony, per Berman, tried working his magic behind the scenes, essentially recruiting Durant on his own. The hope, per Berman, was that Durant would decide to re-up with Oklahoma City for one year and then hit the open market again in 2017, when the Knicks, presumably, were better equipped to catch his attention.
But Durant went to the Warriors. And people aren’t happy about that. They complain about competitive parity. They question Durant’s character. They talk about the changes that need to be made in time for the next CBA, to account for another situation like this one.
Really, though, it’s time for us all to move on. Nothing is certain in the NBA. The Warriors look great on paper, but they will experience growing pains, a la the 2010-11 Miami Heat and 2014-15 Cleveland Cavaliers. Durant and Stephen Curry aren’t exactly billboards for clean health, either. There is so much that could go wrong.
Even if everything goes according to plan, we get to see how the rest of the NBA reacts. Which city will forge the next superteam, the one best suited to competing with this Warriors juggernaut? We don’t know, but finding out is a hella interesting process. So no, Durant has not ruined the NBA or prematurely set fire to his legacy.
Let things play out first before lamenting his decision to unparalleled degrees.
