The consensus from the past generation of NBA figures is that Kevin Durant broke some unspoken code.
Charles Barkley accused Durant of trying to cheat his way into a championship, Reggie Miller questioned Durant's legacy, and now longtime head coach Larry Brown is speaking out.
"I’m not really excited about the fact that the best players are teaming up together," Brown told SiriusXM NBA Radio.
"I don't think Michael (Jordan) would have done it or Larry Bird or Bill Russell or Magic (Johnson). I don't think those guys would have done it. I'm not real comfortable with the league going in that direction."
Brown leans on a familiar rhetoric of comparing Durant to star players who spent their entire careers with one franchise. But players hardly had any power over themselves back then - free agency wasn't even around when Russell played.
Players have gained more leverage over the years, especially with the advent of free agency in its current form, which means they can dictate their own careers. That's all Durant did, and he was within his rights to leave Oklahoma City after giving the team nine seasons of his career.
Whether superteams are good for the league is up for debate, but it doesn't make sense to critique players for exercising their rights.
