After dining together last week in Oklahoma City, some people wanted the narrative of the dinner to be Kobe Bryant pitching the Lakers to Kevin Durant. The message that was written on Durant’s shoe, after their game in Los Angeles, painted a different picture in my head about their relationship.
After individually dueling back and forth in a terrible game that saw the Thunder go on a 36-2 run at one point, they both spoke after the game about how they felt in their first matchup of the season, time spent together in the summer, and most importantly Kobe’s message to KD on the sneaker exchange: