During Kevin Durant’s tenure in Oklahoma City, the team monitored how much interaction their players had with the media.
Why?
Well, the Thunder were and still are a young team. If they were more experienced, handling the ways of the media wouldn’t be as difficult, but without knowing better, giving certain quotes could cause a distraction within the locker room.
In Durant’s open Q&A with ESPN’s Chris Haynes, he elaborated on this very topic.
That’s the protocol they had in OKC. You had to respect it. They wanted to control the story. They wanted to control the narrative around our team, and I understood that, because there’s a lot of bulls— that can seep into a young team and affect a young team. When you’ve got an older group of guys like this, you’ve been around the block, this stuff really doesn’t creep in. It may creep in with a young team.
Like for example, I’m not saying this ever happened, but if you sat down and talk to Jeremy Lamb about, “All right, you’re not playing. How you feel about not playing?” And he says, “I want more minutes,” and the rest of the team hears that as a young group of guys, what are they going to say? It’s going to be, now it’s us versus Jeremy.
A few years ago, KD said the media doesn’t know sh*t and he hasn’t backed off that quote one bit. During that time, reporters were saying his former head coach Scott Brooks should be fired.
Yeah, you don’t. You really don’t know the game like I know it, so don’t come to me and tell me my coach should be fired. Like, what is that? What would you say if I say, “Ethan Strauss should be fired from his job. He’s not good enough.” You’re going to have his back, am I right?
For the entire Q&A, click here.
This is the most open and honest we’ve ever seen Durant.