Kevin Durant to Stephen A. Smith: 'You Just a Flat Out Hater'
By Liam McKeone
Kevin Durant's stellar season has been briefly interrupted by a knee sprain, which means the most online athlete in the world has even more time to be online. His recent Twitter escapades have been centered around pushing back against Stephen A. Smith's claim that, should he fail to win a championship, KD will be forever be known more for leaving Golden State after winning two titles than he will for any of his own individual accolades.
This dispute continued today. On Saturday, Smith posted an excerpt of an appearance he made on NBA Countdown making the same argument-- that Durant needs to win a title or his legacy will suffer. Durant responded on Sunday morning and expressed his disagreement with that idea before stating that Smith is simply a hater if he really does believe it.
Steve, since u decided to use ESPN to push your personal agendas, im sure your minions will run with this story for you, but if u believe this is what my career is defined by then you just a flat out hater. It’s gonna be hard to box the god in https://t.co/AUMkP8P59g
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) February 6, 2022
It is rather difficult to see it any other way. If Durant does fail to win a title over the rest of his career, then everyone will certainly remember that he needed to team up with the 73-9 Warriors to get his rings. But that won't define his career. If he were any lesser of a player than he is, maybe it would. But Durant is one of the best players in the world and has been for some time, an impossible combination of height, length, and athleticism. If KD accomplishes absolutely nothing until he retires, he'll be remembered as one of the most difficult scorers to stop in NBA history and few have made it look easier.
At this point, any neutral observers should probably be rooting for Durant to win a championship this year. For the tweets and the tweets alone.