Kevin Durant on Oklahoma City: 'I Don't Trust Nobody There'
Kevin Durant has not been back to the Bay Area since June, when he left the Warriors and signed with the Nets on a four-year, $164 million max contract. The two-time NBA champion and back-to-back Finals MVP is unsure when he'll return again, but the possibility is there.
A return to Oklahoma City is not in the cards.
Durant told the Wall Street Journal's J.R. Moehringer that he "don't trust nobody there" after the way the city and its fans reacted to his decision to leave the Thunder for the Warriors in 2016. Durant recalled the intense way Oklahoma City turned him from an icon to a traitor overnight.
"People coming to my house and spray-painting on the for sale signs around my neighborhood," Durant said. "People making videos in front of my house and burning my jerseys and calling me all types of crazy names."
When he returned to OKC for the first time as a visitor in February 2017, fans booed him and starting throwing shade in the form of cupcakes, because Durant was supposedly soft. The 10-time All-Star said that the "toxic feeling" turned him off from the city.
"Such a venomous toxic feeling when I walked into that arena," he says. "And just the organization, the trainers and equipment managers, those dudes is pissed off at me? Ain't talking to me? I'm like, Yo, this is where we going with this? Because I left a team and went to play with another team?"
His mother, Wanda, cited the video that circulated of Thunder fan firing bullets into a No. 35 jersey despite the fact that her son spent nine seasons in Oklahoma City as an active member of the community before leaving for the Warriors. Durant even donated a million dollars to tornado victims during his time with the Thunder.
"I'll never be attached to that city again because of that," Durant continued. "I eventually wanted to come back to that city and be part of that community and organization, but I don't trust nobody there. That shit must have been fake, what they was doing. The organization, the GM, I ain't talked to none of those people, even had a nice exchange with those people, since I left."
After departing for Golden State, Durant had initially said he wanted to stay there long-term, not wanting another reaction similar to the one he faced when he left Oklahoma. Durant ultimately spent three seasons with the Warriors before signing with Brooklyn this summer.
