Kevin Durant Never Intended To Finish Career With Warriors, Stephen A Says

The question of will Kevin Durant leave or stay with the Golden State Warriors was asked constantly during the course of the 2018-19 season and it was finally answered on June 30 when he decided it was time for a new adventure. The small forward left the Bay Area team to join the Brooklyn Nets in a sign-and-trade that saw D’Angelo Russell move in the opposite direction.

ESPN NBA insider Stephen A. Smith has revealed that he was always certain that the Warriors were never going to be Durant’s last stop on his journey to be recognized as one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA. He believes the forward would have known that Golden State will always be Stephen Curry’s town and the team will never be “his”.

"When Kevin Durant went to Golden State, I never bought the Steph Curry thing because Kevin Durant always knew it was going to be Steph Curry's town," Smith told Bill Simmons on his podcast, as quoted on Yahoo Sports. "He went there to - he never ever ever intended to stay more .. longer than he stayed."

Durant joined the Warriors after spending 11 seasons with Oklahoma City Thunder where he had to share the spotlight with former MVP Russell Westbrook. He controversially made the switch to the Bay Area team in 2016 and many accused him of simply joining a winning team but despite not becoming the central figure, he did contribute majorly to the Warriors’ success in the last three seasons.

Smith believes the only reason he joined Warriors was to win titles, which he failed to do with Thunder. Durant won two championships in 2017 and 2018 and it was not because of just Curry or Klay Thompson, the former made huge contributions which earned him the NBA Finals MVP trophy on both occasions.

"He wanted to go there, win a couple of rings at the very least, and then move on. Because then when he moved on, he would be moving on as a champion,” Smith added. “Golden State was never a permanent situation for him from my understanding. And that was never going to be the case. He always had intentions to leave. Because he knew that would never be HIS. The question now is, what could possibly be HIS?"

Durant is expected to miss the entirety of the 2019-20 campaign after rupturing his Achilles during the 2019 NBA Finals but when he does return, he is likely to be the central figure in the Nets team despite the presence of Kyrie Irving, who joined in free agency from Boston Celtics this summer.