The war amongst Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant and the NBA media continued this 7 days in a sequence of tweets stemming from, of program, a thing Stephen A. Smith mentioned on ESPN’s “Very first Just take.”
Durant took offense when Smith mentioned Michael Jordan altered the recreation of basketball for the even worse since of how he “individualization the sport.” Smith argued the NBA centered more on gamers somewhat than teams soon after Jordan’s ascension which negatively transformed the dynamic of the sport.
“Michael Jordan is accountable as substantially as any individual for changing the match for worse,” Smith reported. “He was so phenominal that the NBA marketed the individual, the audience gravitated in the direction of the personal and the recreation grew to become a little bit much more individualized. … What I am saying is you had been thinking ‘team’ until eventually Jordan elevated it to a different degree. And from Jordan then you experienced the Kobes and the Vince Carters and some others that arrived along thereafter and the individualization of the activity – significantly for the reason that of the money that came with it – turned more of a focal issue.
Durant refuted that plan and instead instructed in a tweet on Thursday that media personalities like Smith, Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe in fact improved the sport for the worse. Not the players.
That ignited a series of reply tweets from other lovers and journalists. The first being, of class, Smith himself. The ESPN analyst played the “we are legion” card by claiming there are “hundreds extra” media personalities like himself who are “not likely absent.”
Eddie Johnson, a colour analyst for the Phoenix Suns, disagreed with Smith’s argument but responded to Durant’s tweet by contacting present day athletes “also dam (sic) sensitive.” To that Durant responded that media users are truly the ones who are also delicate and “can’t consider what ya’ll dish out.”
Durant versus the media
This isn’t really the initial time Durant clashed with the media. His social media fights have been the stuff of legend on-line, and he’s gone soon after just about anyone – admirers and journalists alike.
He called out “Undisputed” Shannon Sharpe in 2021 for chatting about a phony quotation and then posted a photograph exhibiting Sharpe blocked Durant on Twitter. He clapped back at Chris Broussard in 2019 for suggesting a Warriors title without the need of him would be Durant’s “worst nightmare.” He even named C.J. McCollum a “snake in the grass” in 2018 soon after the then-Blazers guard termed Durant’s choice to perform for the Warriors “tender” on his podcast. Back again in 2015, Durant identified as NBA author Chris Palmer a “dumba**.”
Durant at some point publically spoke about his frustrations with how he was represented by the media during his tenure with the Golden State Warriors previously this yr with the Ringer. He reported he felt isolated from the relaxation of the protection of the team and issue of more scrutiny for his actions than his teammates.
“I just think I deserved a little bit more regard than that. I arrived out in this article and gave back again dollars, sacrificed my identify, and went out in this article and sacrificed my human body just about every night time to be the very best that I can be. I just questioned for a little little bit a lot more regard to hold out till right after the year than to badger me each individual working day, all year with queries like that [about free agency]. I thought it was unfair to me and the total group to even assume about nearly anything that was going to come about following the yr. It was unprofessional, in my opinion.”
This definitely will not be the past of Durants Twitter feuds, so lengthy as persons like Smith have his awareness with their fiery will take.