The Most Relatable, Most Misunderstood Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant, two-time NBA champion, two-time Finals MVP, regular season MVP, four-time scoring champion, and nine-time all-star, finally silenced doubters about his heart and commitment to being a “good” teammate. All it cost him was, potentially, the final stages of his prime and the financial security of a massive payday in July.
How did we get to silencing the doubters with a torn Achilles, a simultaneously stunning and unsurprising ending to Durant’s season? To my eye, this story is another example of the worst elements of sports expectations: we expect superhuman performances and crush those who don’t oblige our desires.
Obligatory phrase to include before getting to the point: I’m not a doctor and don’t know the details of Kevin Durant’s leg BUT Kevin Durant knew enough not to play. He knows his body and he knows his desires. That fans and sports blowhards turn not playing into a call to question his heart is sophomoric at best but relatively normal given the environment. Overwhelmingly men love to glorify so-called real warriors. Those who do battle when they shouldn’t because that is a sign of their heart in the game. Not the hours of practice, physical upkeep in the season, the playing through nagging injuries we know about but aren’t in a player report. That is seen as normal. It’s the concussed guy who has no business banging in the post that’s lauded. The guy with the bum shoulder or the plantar fasciitis playing really is invested. You know how professionals, unlike the exploited college players, can’t show they care because they get paid so much? All those tired tropes rolled into one. WILLIS FREAKING REED!
Durant didn’t play because it was a high-risk thing to do for his career. For his job. For his love. It was the short-term difficulty of sitting out at the highest moments for having more moments in the future. But that is not what superheroes do. And athletes, the top tier in particular, are always viewed as superheroes. So, Durant, like Kawhi Leonard before him and like Derrick Rose before him, had to listen to twitter and Instagram haters. Fine. Then the talking heads on the shows that people claim to never watch but they do because it is hard to legitimately live in isolation from people talking about you for a living. Annoying. Then it came from peers in the game saying he was taking a stand against the “Warriors don’t need Durant” absurdity. That stings. Then it came from some Hall of Famers, an inner circle group that Durant is destined to join, composed by some of his idols. Finally, it came from the locker room. Not people upset with Kevin, per se, but the drama of not knowing if he will or won’t because KLAY PLAYED HURT AND LOONEY DID IT AND IGUDALA IS DOING IT.
So, Durant opted to play and got the green light from team doctors and his agent. And then a reasonable, terrible outcome happened. Why didn’t he ignore the pressure like Kawhi? “Durant’s an adult and can make his own decisions” some will proclaim. He did it because he isn’t a superhero. He is a human.
As Bob Myers teared up through his press conference, tears that could be physical representations of hurt he feels for Kevin as much as guilt for green lighting his playing, he repeated something often associated with Kevin Durant: “he is one of the most misunderstood people.” Myers is right, but I don’t think Durant is some enigma — like Kawhi Leonard. It’s not that complicated.
Kevin Durant is misunderstood because he is thoroughly human living as a human in a world where everyone wants to see and expects superheroes. We misunderstand him because we, as fans, reject our norms for entirely different standards and expectations bolstered by sports media. His wanting to be liked, his wanting life to be easy, his getting into tiffs with random people on social media, his thin skin, his vendettas, his following in nearly the exact steps as his friend Lebron James are all human. We do these things. We know these people. We are these people. Should we care how many people like our posts or what someone said or didn’t say about our outfits? NO! Do we? Damn right. Durant is this person without fail publicly and privately. He is a constant and he is relatable, and we misunderstand him.
DeMarcus Cousins, Durant’s teammate who also suffered the pain — physical and financial — of an Achilles tear described the reality of humanity after Game 5: “It’s bigger than basketball here. Outside these lines, we’re human beings just like everybody in this room. We go through things. We have life crises. We have emotions. We have ups and downs. It’s just, when we get in between those lines, we have to zone out all of that and become these superstar athletes.”
Kevin Durant always loved basketball, he didn’t need to risk his career to show it. He likes being on a team, but he didn’t need to play through an injury to let them know. Durant is simultaneously knowable and unfamiliar. He is misunderstood and yet you and your friends and family behave like him. That it took an injury that he probably feared happening to reveal the humanity within him and the game is cognitively reasonable and emotionally tragic. It doesn’t mean Durant is above blame for his past actions or his desire to risk it all to play in this series. Or that fans aren’t totally at fault for buying into the mythmaking of athletes as demigods. It all just makes us human and to not see that humanity, for better and for worse, means we often will push players to a point where they go too far. And they’re hurt. And they are gone.
At least people have resolved questions of Durant’s heart and focus and passion. Wish it didn’t take self-sacrifice to show them the truth that existed in front of them all along.
