Kevin Durant isn’t actually anti-Russell Westbrook.
He just has slippery thumbs.
NBA Twitter went predictably wild when Durant’s Instagram account liked a comment that was critical of his former teammate in Oklahoma City. Here’s the breakdown, courtesy of Sports Illustrated:
KD liked the comment ? pic.twitter.com/E9KSy72n6Q
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) April 23, 2018
Did Durant maybe think he was using one of his burner accounts again? Is he finally expressing his true feelings about Westbrook? Or was this just an accident?
Ask him, and he’ll allege it’s the latter, per ESPN.com’s Royce Young:
Kevin Durant tells me it was a "total accident" that he liked a comment on Instagram about Russell Westbrook. Was just an honest mistake.
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) April 23, 2018
Look, I know we want to believe he’s lying. This situation is way more fun, way more hilarious, if he’s intentionally being salty or unintentionally expressing his authentic feelz from what he thought was one of his many burner accounts.
But this feels like a legit excuse. Again: I hate to say it. And sure, maybe KD is stretching. But most of us have all been there. We scroll through tweets and Instagram posts and the replies or comments on both and accidentally hit something with our thumb. It happens. This only proves Durant is guilty of surfing the mentions—which, well, doesn’t really mean anything.
Plus, Durant knows the deal by now. He cannot just willy nilly post and like stuff on social media without it being captured and relayed to the world. And if he at all thought he was inoculated against such treatment, that illusion came crashing down with the burner-account fiasco over the offseason. He’s a smart dude. He knows he wouldn’t emerge from a situation like this completely unscathed.
Feel free to doubt him if you wish. That’s your right. But for all the smokescreen and mirrors and hollow excuses we receive from professional athletes, this doesn’t feel like one of them. It seems like an honest mistake from someone who frequently checks his social media feeds, and nothing more.
