The Kevin Durant Bus Metaphors Are Out of Control

Something about Kevin Durant has caused sports pundits to consider the bus. Who rides it? Who drives it? And what are the lessons this staple of public transportation can teach us about the world? It is either a completely germane and natural development or dastardly native advertising by Blue Bird and Greyhound.

On Sunday night Charles Barkley launched into a dissertation on Kevin Durant being a bus-rider and not a bus driver. It didn't make much sense unless you consider 99.8 percent of the league to be failures, of course, but it was content nonetheless.

This was after the Nets had fallen behind the Boston Celtics 3-0 in an opening playoff series. Durant played exceptionally well on Monday night, yet not well enough to ward off a sweep. Which opened the door for ESPN's Jay Williams to go back to the newfound well this morning.

Williams' take sounded awfully familiar. Which is perhaps part of "choosing violence." It does feel violent to make a person wonder if they're going crazy at 8 in the morning or if they are, in fact, hearing yet again about the intersection of sports and bus culture.

Remarkably, this is actually the third time the wheels on the symbolism have gone round and round over the past 36 hours. Here's Speak For Yourself's Emmanuel Acho yesterday afternoon saying stuff about Durant's inability to operate a Class 5 vehicle. A word of warning: he's going to blast you in the face with a lot of stuff.

What the hell is going on here? Is this the not-so-subtle creep of Big Bus? Is it because Durant plays in Brooklyn where there are a lot of buses? Is Jerome Bettis trying to generate buzz for a new business endeavor?

Craziest of all is that the one basketball player in history everyone would agree drove the bus is actually more famous for riding the bus. Don't know what that means.