The reach of cable sports shows and social media can really change our perception of an athlete. This seems to be truer in the NBA than in any other sport. Highlights can quickly make a player a demigod amongst the uniformed fans. An embarrassing defeat or miscue can just as quickly define a guy’s career. The ensuing memes, jokes, and hashtags take on a life of their own, and can diminish or heighten a player’s reputation sooner than his play. In Change the Narrative, we’ll work to give overdue credit and clarify long-running misconceptions about the NBA’s elite. Next up is KD…

Kevin Durant is the real deal. He may be the meanest scorer I’ve seen in my lifetime. There have been other deadly perimeter scorers, ballhandlers, shooters, and finishers, but none at his height with his mobility and efficiency. He’s special, in that he’s making the 50-40-90 almost as routine as a Russell Westbrook triple-double. In recent years, he has committed to using his length on defense to alter more shots. He can become too iso-driven, as stars are known to do, but he doesn’t mind playing off the ball. That style doesn’t lend itself to pretty assist numbers, but KD does his job extremely well. He’s a contemporary 4, that can slide to 5 in small lineups, and still fill the responsibilities he was a given as a 3 when he entered the league.

He gets killed for signing with Golden State in 2016, and understandably so. To this day, anything he posts on social media is pelted with the snake emoji. People think he left a great situation to get a guaranteed ring, with a team that beat him, and didn’t exactly need him to win. Some of this is true, but it isn’t all fair.

Durant's critics drag him for leaving Westbrook and OKC behind for the Warriors. They show their disdain with the snake emoji.

Are we sure OKC was such a great spot to be in? Yes, he played with an all-star, but not one that was exactly easy to share the court with. Westbrook’s usage rate issues have been well documented, but they bled in to the playoffs. In one game, he dribbled up the court and shot without passing on five consecutive possessions. For all his valiant forays to the rim, that mentality could wear on anybody. Plus, the OKC ownership was known for being cheap. They prematurely traded James Harden, after refusing to grant him the extra few million dollars he desired in his contract extension. They compounded that misstep by never spending the money or assets to secure a real tertiary threat to what Russ and KD were doing offensively. If you couple those miscues with the awful injury luck they suffered it’s not hard to see why Durant may’ve desired a change of scenery.

Always in contention, KD and Russ were unable to win a title together in Oklahoma City.

So, he became a free agent when an all-time great team lost the Finals by a fluke, needed a small forward, and earned cap space when the league’s salary cap took a historic jump. I don’t blame him anymore. Golden State hustles on defense, shares the ball, and doesn’t seem to have guys who care about getting credit for each win. That is the antithesis of what Billy Donovan coached in OKC, he allowed the Russ stat-chasing to happen. KD just wanted to win in a fun style of basketball more than he wanted to battle with Russ and the cheap OKC ownership.

Fortunately, for his detractors, he projects to be a free agent a few more times, and get the chance to win back hearts. For now, we shouldn’t allow his perceived lack of heart to distract us from his dominant play. He’s headed to the hall of fame and will enter the pantheon discussion if he continues at this pace for a few more years. He’s already two championships in…