“He's a very vulnerable person” – Steve Kerr opens up on coaching Kevin Durant & hard knocks that followed
To this day, Kevin Durant's decision to leave the OKC Thunder and join the Golden State Warriors after blowing a 3-1 lead in the playoffs continues to be scrutinized. Given that the Warriors had already won a championship prior to his arrival, many believed that the team didn't need Durant, and thus created an unfair balance.
In his first two seasons with the team, they went back-to-back in the NBA Finals, winning a pair of championships before things turned sour. A heated argument mid-game that saw Draymond Green tell the former MVP that the team didn't need him was credited as the spark, but that wasn't the case.
According to Durant and Green, it was the way coach Steve Kerr and general manager Bob Myers handled the argument that really soured things. The way Kerr sees things, however, by the end of Durant's second season with the Warriors, much of the joy had been sucked out of the game for him. Kerr said:
"By the end of the second year that's when it just became a little bit more of just, I guess, a labor, you know, than a joy for him. And so it got difficult. The third year, it was more difficult to communicate with him because he wasn't happy but I always appreciated his heart and his humanity.
"He's a very vulnerable person and especially the first two years he really gave of himself to the team and was, you know, Finals MVP both years so he was great to coach. It's just one of those things where it just wasn't going to be a long-term thing."
You can see Kerr's comments in the video above, beginning at the 46:59 mark.
Steve Kerr and Kevin Durant's relationship
As Steve Kerr explained, Kevin Durant was a great player to coach, who was always willing to put in the necessary work. What Kerr wasn't a fan of, however, was Durant's seemingly obsessive social media usage.
According to an interview with Matt Sullivan, an award-winning author with experience at some of the biggest outlets in the United States, Kerr tried to help. Or rather, he tried to explain to Kevin Durant why the former MVP shouldn't be wasting his time on social media.
Sullivan spoke on an episode of Can't Knock The Hustle back in 2021 where he revealed that Kerr took Kevin Durant out for drinks when KD was on the Warriors. The goal? Get Durant to stop arguing with basketball fans on Twitter.
According to Sullivan, Kerr explained that he admired LeBron James for going offline when he received considerable hate in the wake of his infamous Miami move:
"He said, 'You could just see the strain on his face that third year on the Warriors. He was staring at that phone all the time.' So he can't get over this, he's out here having GOAT top 5 debates, trying to make sure he's in that conversation on Twitter. He says he's over it but he's not. and I don't think he's really changed since the Bay."
Kevin Durant, for his part, didn't deny the claims, simply responding with a tweet.
@naslabumwhen I don’t see a problem with me interacting with basketball fans, it should be encouraged…steve should’ve also said that I’m never late and I work through every rep in practice with game speed. That should be more interesting than what I do on Twitter.
You can see Sullivan's comments below, beginning shortly after the eight-minute mark.