LeBron James and Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant being a member of the Los Angeles Lakers could be a ‘thing’ this summer.
During an interview with Bleacher Report’s Rich Bucher in the fall, KD said that playing with LeBron James was toxic and admitted that the attention LeBron James receives isn’t his fault.
Start the KD to LA bandwagon up (via @NBAonTNT)
So much hype comes from being around LeBron from other people,” Durant told Bucher.
Bucher weighed in on Durant’s commentary with me on the Scoop B Radio Podcast.
Check out an excert from our interview below.
Brandon’ Scoop B’ Robinson: Here’s my follow-up to that. You do the interview with Kevin Durant, he talks about stuff, you know, relating to who plays with whom, and by the way, for those who are listening, Ric wrote a piece in Bleacher Report on December 5th, 2018 titled “Why Doesn’t Anyone Want to Play With LeBron Anymore?” and there was a quote with Kevin Durant where he talked about Kyle Korver and other people said if you’re Kyle Korver, that makes sense, Kyle Korver in Atlanta was the bulk of the offense, he wrote and said, “If you’re a younger player like Kawhi, trying to pair him with LeBron James doesn’t really make sense because Kawhi enjoys having the ball in his hands.” When you wrote this piece, were you displeased with the way that aggregators phrased Kevin Durant’s line of questioning?
Ric Bucher: Very much so because you had to take what he said into account to fully understand or appreciate. And I mean, I knew things were going to be picked off and you know, the topic statement, I think if he had it over to do over again, he might’ve used that. If he had said it’s tiresome, it wouldn’t have had nearly the same impact, and I think in some way that’s what he was looking for. It’s annoying. It’s tiresome. He used toxic and everybody jumped on that an insinuated that it’s LeBron that create that toxic atmosphere. I think LeBron’s fame as a celebrity create an atmosphere where quite honestly, I mean, I see it all the time. Again, I have go back to like people breathlessly asking LeBron questions outside of the realm of basketball that there’s no reason to believe that LeBron is an expert on those things or that his view sheds light on the issue, if you will. And so, that being KD’s complaint, I understand. I mean, look, honestly, I don’t even like the headline because, the story in totality, it’s not that no one wants to play with LeBron. It’s that the free agents, superstar free agents that are or should be available this summer, there are reasons why playing with LeBron is not the be all and end all that everybody thinks it is. Guys like Tyson Chandler who’s quoted in it, Trevor Ariza, who’s quoted in it, quality role-players like they talk about, yeah, absolutely, they want to play with him, you know, go to LA and those are the kinds of guys that have benefited greatly from playing with LeBron. But if you’re just talking about Kawhi Lennar and Kevin Durant, players of that caliber, they see themselves as peers, Paul George, see themselves as peers of Lebron. They see themselves competing with him and they have seen with Kevin Love and Chris Bosh that if you are a star, you’re competing for space with LeBron, and again, not necessarily LeBron’s fault, he takes up all the oxygen in the room. He naturally is the number one on the team. And so you go in, if you’re Kevin Durant, or Paul George, or Kawhi Leonard, you go in knowing ‘I am going to be viewed as number two here’. Well, if you’re younger and ambitious and you don’t see yourself as being, you know, riding LeBron’s coattails, you see yourself as saying, ‘hey, I want to prove that I can compete with him and beat him’, you’re going to think twice about wanting to go join up with him, knowing how you are going to be perceived and, quite possibly, having to change the way you play, and then throw on top of it that we’re talking about guys like Kawhi Leonard and Kevin Durant who essentially placed the same positions. I mean they’re, they’re point forward, they’re guys who are used to having the ball in their hands. Do I want to sign up for playing with LeBron and then have to accommodate my game to his? Nah, you know what? Maybe I should rather go someplace and say I’m the straw that stirs the drink and let me see if I can do it better than LeBron does it with his crew.