The Oklahoma City Thunder were once home to a powerhouse roster, featuring several young players who would go on to become some of the NBA‘s biggest stars, including Kevin Durant, James Harden, and Russell Westbrook. Now, a former member of that team has made contentious claims, leading KD to fire back with a strong statement.
“Kevin Durant, another organization, another failure. I didn’t say it was his fault, but it’s another failure. This is a failed season,” Kendrick Perkins said on ESPN, criticizing the Phoenix Suns‘ performance this season before specifically calling out Durant’s role as a leader. “You replace LeBron and KD and you give LeBron Bradley Beal and Devin Booker and they wouldn’t be sitting at (25-25).”
To bolster his argument, Perkins referenced past experiences. “I’d done been on so many teams with so many Hall of Famers. On the Celtics team, everybody will probably think that KG (Kevin Garnett) was the leader. He wasn’t the leader. You know who the leader was? It was James Posey,” Kendrick explained. “So, every single team doesn’t mean your best player is the leader.”
He then reminisced about his time as Durant’s teammate, which lasted from 2011 to 2015. “When I was with Oklahoma City Thunder, it wasn’t KD, it wasn’t Russ (Westbrook), it wasn’t James (Harden), I was the one leading along with Nick Collison,” Perkins recalled.
Durant’s harsh response
The comments made by Perkins, which were shared by TheDunkCentral on X (formerly Twitter), quickly reached Kevin Durant, who responded with a fiery quote post just hours later.
“I know this may be a reach but this comment is by far the craziest (expletive) I’ve seen this week,” KD wrote, making it abundantly clear that he strongly disagreed with Perkins’ portrayal of his leadership role during their time with the Thunder.
Durant and Perkins’ Thunder tenure
Kevin Durant was selected second overall in the 2007 NBA Draft by the Seattle SuperSonics, who relocated to Oklahoma City the following year and became the Thunder. The forward quickly established himself as one of the league’s premier talents and became the cornerstone of the franchise.
In the years that followed, other promising players joined the team, including Russell Westbrook and James Harden. Kendrick Perkins, a seasoned center from the Boston Celtics, joined the Thunder in 2011, adding veteran experience to an already dynamic squad.
With this core, the Thunder became a perennial contender, reaching the NBA Finals for the first time in 2012, where they were defeated by the Miami Heat in five games. Despite continued competitiveness in the years that followed, the departure of key players gradually weakened the team. A decade later, now the Oklahoma City Thunder seem poised to contend once again with the league’s top franchises.