I honestly don’t see the big deal about KD quitting Team USA. It isn’t the Olympics, Paul George leg just was snapped in half and Durant has quarter of a billion dollar in sneaker contracts on the table. I think those are all valid reasons to take the summer off.
But, people are looking for someone to blame and when it doubt blame Jay Z. Sheridan Hoops’ sources had this to say.
“It’s like Jay-Z is determined to do a scorched earth negotiation with everyone Kevin Durant is currently aligned with, and they aren’t doing him any favors,” one source close to Durant told SheridanHoops on Friday as Team USA prepared for its first exhibition game in preparation for the 2014 World Cup.
What I have discovered in talking to members of the U.S. federation over the past two days is this: Durant and his agency, Roc Nation, are more interested in cashing in on his MVP award and his expiring Nike deal than they are in having Durant keep his word to the people who were with him in 2010 in Turkey at the World Championship and in 2012 in London at the Olympics.
I have heard more about Durant’s inner circle – and the feuds and fallout he is experiencing – than I am comfortable reporting. But I will say this: All is not well with the reigning MVP. Far from it. What we are seeing now is the manifestation of that dysfunction.
While I think Sheridan is making way too big of a deal of Durant leaving Team USA, the last part about the turmoil going with KD, I do believe is true because I’ve been told the same thing.
We will see how it all turns out, no one wants to go through life being Mase to someone’s Puffy.