Initially, KD said he was tired and that was the reason he quit Team USA. Most people with any common sense knew that was unlikely to be true.
Durant who is currently out for a while with his own injury, now says it was Paul George’s injury that made him quit.
A few days before he reached out to Krzyzewski, Durant watched Indiana Pacers forward Paul George break his right leg in a horrific collision with a basket stanchion during a Team USA basketball scrimmage in Las Vegas that convinced the reigning NBA MVP to withdraw from the FIBA World Cup.
“It took everything out of me seeing that,” Durant later told friend Randy Williams and a Nike executive at his camp of George. “Everything I had to play for Team USA, that injury stripped it away from me.”
“It felt awkward,” Durant said of the scrimmage that possibly ended George’s season. “Once we were playing, it just didn’t feel right for some reason.”
“When you see something like that, so gruesome, in front of you, of course you’re going to think, ‘This could happen to me.’ ”
This is part of his HBO Documentary that is debuting tonight, it should be fascinating to watch. Besides apologizing to Lil B, my advice to Kevin is to just be himself, you don’t have to have the perfect answer all the time, just be honest, it is ok.
H/T CBS Sports