Durant laments Thunder passing up veterans in pivotal years
Kevin Durant is finally opening up about why he left the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Throughout his career, the 6-foot-9 forward has been loyal to the team that drafted him second overall in 2007. Once his rookie deal was up, he didn't look elsewhere, re-signing with the Thunder in 2011 before leading them to the NBA Finals in 2012.
The Thunder were close, but instead of building upon that momentum, management traded away Durant's friend and star James Harden to the Houston Rockets.
Rather than adding guys who could help Durant win, the organization sacrificed some of its talent in order to save money, then asked for more out of the superstar.
"Where other teams went out and got that veteran guy, we kept getting younger," the four-time scoring champ told Rolling Stone's Paul Solotaroff.
The Thunder declined, and never returned to The Finals. Eventually, KD had enough.
"'I can't do it anymore,'" his mother, Wanda, recalled him saying.
"'They're not in this thing with me, we're not together like we were - I feel like I need something different.'"
The Golden State Warriors are different. They defeated Durant and the Thunder in seven games in the conference finals, before falling a win shy of repeating as champions.
The former league MVP added that the way everything unfolded felt like a setup for him to leave.
"After Game 7," he recalled, "I called up my agent and said, 'Damn, dude, Golden State - what if?'"