With the Kevin Durant sweepstakes fully underway, the speculation is high that he might make a return to the Bay Area and his former team, the Golden State Warriors. Fresh off another championship, Durant going back might certainly cinch more championships, but some feel that it is a bad look for the solo stardom of Kevin Durant.
That “some” would be the chatty former NBA player and current NBA analyst Kendrick Perkins, who said just that on a recent episode of “First Take.”
“If I’m Kevin Durant. There’s no way in hell … OK … that I’d want to go back to Golden State,” said Perkins. “Because if he does, it would tarnish his legacy forever. Now if he goes back he can go win more rings and help Steph Curry’s legacy. His own legacy would be tarnished forever.”
Durant has lived under the microscope forever, and when he first left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Bay Area it was controversial. Durant joined a 73-win team that eliminated OKC previously in the playoffs. His basketball business style makes people very critical of his nomadic style of doing business in the NBA.
However, there do exist dissenting opinions.
“Absolutely not,” ESPN analyst Domonique Foxworth clapped back at Big Perk. “Wherever tarnish that is on his legacy from going to Golden State the first time is already there. If he does it again, it’s like, OK.
“It didn’t bother me the first time. I understand why it annoyed so many people. But him going back is not going to hurt his legacy, but all the people that were bothered by him the first time aren’t going to get more bothered, and the people who were OK with it the first time won’t suddenly be annoyed with him going there. Go ahead and win another title with KD if you can.”
Someone is out there holding their breath waiting on you to fail… make sure they suffocate! Carry on…
— Kendrick Perkins (@KendrickPerkins) July 5, 2022
But Big Perk wasn’t having it, calling Foxworth’s response “nothing but nonsense.”
“Forget the fact that he went and joined a 73-9 team, a team he had a 3-1 lead on, and he joined them to win a championship. Forget the fact that he left them to team up with Kyrie Irving when he could’ve stayed there with the Warriors and continued to win more championships alongside Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson.
“Forget the fact that he teamed up with Kyrie, acquired James Harden, and it was one of the biggest failures in NBA history. Forget the fact that the Golden State Warriors just won the NBA championship without Kevin Durant.
“And you’re telling me that if KD was to leave the Brooklyn Nets and go back to Golden State after things didn’t work out with him and Kyrie Irving, the same guy who won the championship with LeBron James? You’re telling me that his legacy wouldn’t be tarnished? Are you crazy?”
As Kevin Durant plots his future NBA home, it is still being debated how the supposed championship-bound Brooklyn Nets are now the team that could have been. However, as KD decides where his next home will be, a lot hangs over his name if he becomes part of the Bay Area championship team he was a part of but no longer needed him to win it all.
