Kevin Durant's regrettable comments about the 2017 Warriors & the 2026 Sixers don't add up
Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O'Connor and contributing writer Tom Haberstroh discuss Kevin Durant's Threads commentary about LeBron James signing with the Sixers. Check out the full conversation on "The Kevin O'Connor Show" and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen .
Video Transcript
Kevin Durant, he was in the news this week.
This is the point of the NBA off-season where we're gonna talk about nonsense like this because Kevin Durant, I'm not sure if he's trolling or just downright delusional when he commented on a post comparing LeBron James joining the Sixers to him joining the Warriors when he said, "Ain't close.
Laughing my ass off.
Joel, MVP recently.
Jaylen Brown, recent Finals MVP.
Tyrese Maxey, All-Star the last three years.
We all know what LeBron does.
Klay Thompson was never an MVP candidate in nothing.
22 points per game.
Draymond Green, 14 points per game, seven boards, six assists.
Steph an MVP just like Joel was.
I don't get how the Warriors team is better on paper."
KD, Tom, like I said, is he trolling or is he delusional still about his decision to leave a team that blew a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals to join a 73 and 9 Golden State Warriors team to win two NBA Finals, two Finals MVPs, but people devalue it considering the team that he went to that was already a perennial contender, that was a 73 win team, that was in in the NBA Finals and beat your team.
Is he delusional about that or is he just trolling?
I don't know the answer, Tom.
What do you think it is?
Is he trolling?
I think he's delusional on this.
It doesn't seem like he's trolling, considering the multiple times that he's op- had opportunities to kinda clear the air about what he actually means here.
I mean, Joel Embiid, yes, he won an MVP, but I wouldn't characterize that as recent.
It was in the 2023 season, which, four years before the upcoming season.
Steph Curry was coming off two MVP seasons.
The Warriors were coming off a 73 win, season.
And I just don't think you can claim that Jaylen Brown winning a Finals MVP is on par with some of the accolades- that that Warriors team was.
It's just I don't know.
Three years in the NBA is a l- is like a decade in basketball terms.
Just because you can say that Joel Embiid won an MVP in 2023 does not put him on par with peak Steph Curry in 2020, in 2016.
It just doesn't add up, especially when you consider the miles on the tires of Joel Embiid at the, at, at now compared to where Steph was in 2016.
It's, it's delusional.
And that's okay.
Like, I understand why he's pointing to that Warriors team because he feels a certain way, I'm guessing, about how he-- everyone in the media piled onto him joining a super team that had broken the, the Chicago Bulls record and everyone just destroyed KD for doing that.
And I think he's trying to draw the parallel that on paper, quote unquote, "the 76ers," have a much stronger resume.
But when you stack 'em next to each other, the resume is Outside of, like, All-Stars, recent All-Stars, the resume for the Warriors was much better than this w- this 76ers team.
If you take out LeBron for this 76ers team and you take out KD from that, that 2016, 2015, 2014 Warriors, the, the 76ers had eight All-Star appearances when you talk about Jaylen Brown, Embiid, and Tyrese Maxey.
They had eight combined in the previous four seasons.
But then if you look at All-NBA awards, the Warriors team with Klay, Draymond, and Steph had six All-NBA, two MVPs in Steph Curry, and a Finals MVP in Dr- in, Andre Iguodala, in that 2015 season.
So if you wanna throw in Jaylen Brown winning a Finals MVP two years ago, you have to throw in that KD was joining an Andre Iguodala team, that he won a Finals MVP.
Didn't mention that in his breakdown, but I think it's relevant.
And even if you look at the previous season, as in what the, what the Se- 76ers had, coming into this year, they had three All-Stars last year, two All-NBA players, but no MVP, no Finals MVP, whereas the Warriors were stacked on that comparison, too.
So I, I also point out Tyrese Maxey has not been an All-Star in the last three seasons.
He mentioned that in his breakdown.
Two out of the last three seasons, Tyrese Maxey.
But to me, this all points to him trying to lower the volume on all the hate he got for joining the Warriors in 2016, and it just seems to me, that he, he still feels a lot of, I guess he's-- it, it's just something that we're-- he, he feels a little resentful over the media and what they, how they treated him in 2016-
