Nearly a decade later and Kevin Durant is still explaining why he joined the Golden State Warriors in 2016. His latest rationale? He saw them as underdogs. Which is wild when you think about it.
Durant sat down with Barstool Sports recently and laid it out pretty plainly. He said the Warriors “never been a winning organization” and that, historically, nobody liked them. He talked about looking at the “totality of the franchise” instead of just those five years before he got there. In his mind, Golden State still felt like an underdog even after they won a title in 2015 and went 73-9 the next season.
“It ain’t LA, it ain’t New York,” Durant said. “This feel good. Like s**t, this feel like where I’m supposed to be.”
Let’s be real for a second. He’s not completely wrong about the franchise’s history. Before the Stephen Curry era, the Warriors were mostly irrelevant. They had a title in 1975 and not much else. For decades they were the league’s punching bag. Rick Barry, Run TMC, Baron Davis — there were fun moments, but no sustained greatness. From the 1950s through 2012, they made the Finals exactly three times. So Durant has a point about the long view.
But here’s the thing. By the time Durant actually signed, the Warriors had already won 67 games and a championship. Then they won 73. They had Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green in their primes. They came back from 3-1 down to beat Durant’s Thunder in the 2016 Western Conference Finals. Calling them an underdog at that point takes some serious mental gymnastics.
Durant’s career path since leaving Golden State backs up his claim though. He went to Brooklyn, a franchise with one Finals appearance in its history. He forced a trade to Phoenix, a team famous for never winning a championship. Now he’s in Houston, a franchise that finally won a title as a sixth seed in 1994. He’s not chasing banners hung in the 1980s.
Still, it’s hard to separate what Durant did from how it tilted the league. The Warriors became basically unbeatable for two years. They won back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018. They probably win a third straight if Durant doesn’t tear his Achilles in the 2019 Finals. That’s not an underdog story. That’s a superteam that wrecked the league’s competitive balance.
Durant has spent years defending this decision. And honestly, it’s kinda fascinating that he still feels the need to reframe it. The move changed his legacy forever, and not entirely for the better in the eyes of a lot of fans.
Maybe he genuinely bought his own reasoning. Or maybe it’s easier to look back and say you joined an underdog than to admit you took the easiest path to a ring. Either way, the video is out there now and people are arguing about it all over again.
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