A couple of days ago, Kevin Durant made the rounds for some unfortunate comments about his Brooklyn Nets teammates. He pointed out the lineup and claimed that people only expect them to win because he plays there.
Ben Simmons has been in and out of the lineup with multiple injuries, while Kyrie Irving was serving a suspension after promoting an anti-semitic documentary. Durant was pretty much left on an island.
However, even if those comments were true, they seemed like a shot at his teammates. That’s why he had to clear the air, and even admitted he was embarrassed to walk around them after his statements went viral.
NBA News: Kevin Durant Says He Was Trying To Protect His Teammates
“I should’ve explained myself better to Chris Haynes, but it wasn’t – it wasn’t like this. That wasn’t my intentions when I was saying it,” KD said on his podcast. “I was more so saying, look yo, I was trying to protect my teammates from the expectations from everybody else. Like yo relax a little bit, let us work this out until everything gets right, but look at how we’re playing right now. [We have] 30 point wins, 40 point wins, and games where we keep the opposing team under 100 points, but then when we lose and give up 150 points to the Lakers for one game, everyone, is like ‘oh shit the sky is falling down.’”
“And its just like yo, do you see the progression of our team and what we doin’ and how guys are steppin’ up and trying to do more? So when they actually end those rows of gettin’ back to ‘this what we need you here for’, then Edmond gon’ be better, Royce gon’ be better, Clax gon’ be better, I’m gon’ be better, Joe goin -and oh I forgot about Joe. I ain’t say Joe. Joe coming off a whole year not playing and now basically been playing the 3 for us. He been having to guard bigger guys, he been goin down to the rim a little bit, droppin stuff off, and just expanding his game,” Durant added. “So everybody expanding their game throughout this time, so there’s going to be ups and downs through our team, and I was just [trying to say], don’t expect us to be perfect every night or great every night. It’s gonna be times when we playing incredible basketball and the next game we might not be able to hit sh*t. So like, that was my whole thing and I definitely could have worded it better.”
At the end of the day, it’s unlikely that Durant wanted to thrash his teammates, so maybe it was just a big misunderstanding. So, props to him for at least admitting his mistake and clarifying his words.
