When Kevin Durant and the Golden State Warriors joined forces in the summer of 2016, they became instant villains because, for many reasons, they didn’t need each other.
Golden State had a unanimous MVP in Stephen Curry, a young and balanced supporting cast, a championship and a record-setting 73-win season in its recent past.
KD had his own MVP award, unquestioned top-five-in-the-league status and a highly successful Oklahoma City Thunder squad that desperately wanted to keep him.
The two superpowers united anyway, triggering a great deal of analysis that involved words like “overkill” and “unfair.”
Outside of the Bay Area, it was impossible to root for them.
All parties involved were front-runners. Bandwagon jumpers.
And those were the polite criticisms.
Were KD to return to the crumbling Warriors via offseason trade, attitudes would be totally different this time. Forget Durant being labeled a coattail-rider.
He’d become a savior.
With the once-dynastic Dubs fading and Durant’s Phoenix Suns facing one of the bleaker long-term outlooks in the league, everything is different.
The Warriors’ uneven season and Play-In dismissal proved they’d grown too old and too slow—not exactly a shock for a club led by players in their mid- and late-30s.
They appeared to need more youth and athleticism.
Durant would provide little of either, but what if Golden State steered into the skid instead? What if the better play is actually doubling all the way down, destroying the second timeline and delivering Steph, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green one of the few veteran stars capable of maybe making a “one last ride” gambit pay off?