Durant understood reception from OKC fans, but enjoyed playing villain
With Kevin Durant's first visit back to Oklahoma City almost two months in the rear-view mirror, he's had time to think about where Thunder fans were coming from - in terms of booing and other antics - and sounds almost sympathetic toward them.
"If I was a fan of that team and I was in their shoes, I would do the same thing," Durant told Bill Simmons on The Ringer Podcast Network, before adding a caveat.
"I think at some point in your career, if you're going to be considered one of the best, you should want to feel loved and hated. And I felt that. I wanted to see what both sides felt like."
While Durant later returned to OKC on the Warriors' injured list, he was referring to the initial Feb. 11 visit during which numerous fans booed and trolled him with cupcake shirts and assorted signs. Durant's mother, Wanda, was personally upset by the crowd's behavior, but Kevin told Simmons that nobody directly confronted her.
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Durant also explained that he'd tried to prepare her for the negative reception beforehand.
"She's a mom. She doesn't see it from a fan's perspective," he said. "She sees it as ... I been there so long, I did so much in that community, and for the team and for the organization, and just like a mom should ... she thinks that I should be commended for it. Me, on the other hand ... me and Rich (Kleiman, Durant's agent) was telling her, 'I don't think you realize what's coming.' My mom was like, 'I want to walk down on the floor.'
"I'm like, 'You gotta relax!' She really thought it was a homecoming."
Durant admitted that his insulated life in Oklahoma City - the NBA's third-smallest market - also lulled him into a false sense of security before he signed with the Warriors last summer.
"I was kind of in a professional fantasy world, there was never any kind of hate, he said. "There were no tabloids. I was really living in ... a real bubble. I was naive. Then when I left I was kind of shocked ... then I would go back and I'm like, I remember this guy in the stands, I used to say what's up to you every day, every game, and now I turn around and you've got a cupcake shirt on."