Curry: OKC fans 'should appreciate' what KD accomplished

Maybe sentiments will soften over time, but Oklahoma City Thunder fans will only react one way when prodigal son Kevin Durant returns Saturday.

A maelstrom of boos, jeers, and insults await Durant ahead of his highly anticipated homecoming, but his Golden State Warriors co-star Stephen Curry says the fans should see the bigger picture when Durant enters Chesapeake Energy Arena as an opponent for the first time.

"I don’t know how the fans will react, but people should appreciate what he did there," Curry told Daniel Brown of the Mercury News. "Because that’s special that anybody in this league can be a face of the franchise for so long.

"He represented inspiration and hope for so many people for so many years. You hope people appreciate that regardless of what decision he made this summer."

Durant famously left OKC in the offseason to join the Warriors - the team that overcame a 3-1 deficit to eliminated the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. His decision was not well received by his former fans, as eight years of brilliance and exuberance was erased with a single post on the Players' Tribune.

Various fan videos featured OKC fans burning Durant's jersey, calling him a traitor, and in one instance some fans even obliterated the No. 35 uniform with the help of AR-15s.

Durant initially tried to soothe the painful transition, but later admitted that he cared too much for how his former fans felt.

"One thing I was doing too much of was I was trying to be delicate with everyone’s feelings, especially the fan base in OKC, and my former teammates," Durant said.

But having spent nearly a third of his life in Oklahoma City, Curry believes there will be some lingering feelings for Durant to resolve as well.

“There are going to be emotions that he’ll have. He left a lot of blood, sweat and tears in OKC for a long time,” Curry said. “That becomes part of who you are. … He grew up there, pretty much, into a man. That’s hard to turn off.”