Kevin Durant (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
Kevin Durant didn’t want to go to the New York Knicks last offseason.
It’s been 14 months since Kevin Durant announced that he, Kyrie Irving, and DeAndre Jordan were all heading to the Brooklyn Nets instead of the New York Knicks in free agency, and Knicks fans are still looking for some closure as to why Durant opted to sign with their hated rivals. Durant opened up on his decision to pick Brooklyn over Manhattan, citing the media pressure that he’d have to endure with the Knicks as a major turn-off.
On J.J. Redick’s podcast, Durant, who claimed in February 2019 that he knew he was going to New York, asserted that he never really considered playing for the Knicks, citing the fact he wasn’t interested in being the “savior of New York” that would single-handedly take the Knicks out of the gutter.
Kevin Durant didn’t buy into the whole mystique of the Knicks
Despite what James Dolan and the Knicks’ ravenous fan base will have you believe, the Knicks and Madison Square Garden don’t have the same mystique that they had when Pat Riley had New York near the top of the NBA world in the mid-90s. The team has been mired in sub-.500 basketball for two decades and they have constantly struck out when it comes to landing the biggest free agents. Be it due to the Knicks media, a justified distrust of Dolan, or the belief that the Knicks wouldn’t surround him with playmakers, Durant left for the more stable operation over in Brooklyn.
Durant liked how he can focus entirely on basketball in the relative shelter provided by Brooklyn. By joining the Nets, Durant not only has a much better roster and front office at his disposal, but he has the privilege of worrying only about basketball rather than what the media is saying about him at any given moment.
In the end, Durant chose a more well-run operation over one that was overseen by James Dolan. Can you really blame him?