Durant will not leave

Kevin Durant is not going anywhere. I say this never having met Kevin Durant or any of his people. I do not follow him or anyone else on social media. I have social media accounts only to make it easier to sign into other accounts. I have no inside information of any kind, and yet I say it with confidence.

Kevin Durant will not go anywhere because he is first, foremost and at this point completely a basketball player. Kevin Durant is an artist, a poet if you will. When he plays basketball he is interested in playing basketball, out on the court, with that ball that feels so good and that orange hoop with that net that makes such a great swoosh when the ball goes through it, and with those other kids. The same joy that an artist gets in creating something magnificent Durant gets from the rarefied moments when he is playing perfect basketball. Legacy, who was better than whom? Business interests? That can be left for retirement. These other successes would be failures, however successful, if they threw his focus off from its one true goal, playing great basketball. Great basketball is a team game and the Warriors play that better than anyone else. It is something someone can do, if at all, for only a short part of a long life.

As long as Kevin Durant cares about the shear joy of playing beautiful basketball he will stay with the Warriors. For it is a certainty that if he goes anywhere else the level of basketball will be lower, much lower. Because basketball is a team game whom you play with counts a lot. Is he going to find another Steph Curry? Another Klay Thompson? Will he find him in Kyrie Irving? Look at Irving on the foul line. He is as nervous as a hummingbird. How could he provide the steady focus Curry can?

And then there is Steve Kerr. Look at how a coach as good as Brad Stevens mishandled the Celtic situation as compared to Kerr's steady hand and ability to clarify each player's role. Talk about someone who has to juggle minutes for star players! As a big Steve Kerr fan I feel he doesn't get his due. What other team has been able to install an offense like his? Durant has become much better with the Warriors, and this pretty late in his career. Even so, Durant slows the Warriors offense down. That's okay given that he is Kevin Durant. What will he do to the Knicks? I suspect he would have deja-vue of the Thunder with all that frustration. Why would he do it? Because he would be a big star in New York? What does that have to do with playing good basketball? As long as the Warriors are willing to pay him, and Lacomb said he would, he would be crazy to go, unless he has lost his love for basketball, the real game, played on hardwood, and is thinking about legacy or bright lights or business, like a guy already retired.

Now I like Kevin Durant as both a person and a player, but I must admit I would be curious, if he did leave, as to how the Warriors play. I don't know but I suspect they will be pretty good. But if he still has a love for playing beautiful basketball, what to do is a no brainer.