© Brace Hemmelgarn | 2019 Mar 19
On this week’s episode of “To Tell the Truth”, Kevin Durant-style, we present the two competing truths.
Which, sports fans and live studio audience, do you believe?
TRUTH NUMBER ONE: He would never leave the Warriors. The chemistry is too good. The chance at a dynasty is too ripe. The Bay Area’s access to Silicon Valley — and his chance at a five-year, $221 million contract — is too rich. Yes, Kevin Durant will re-sign with the Warriors!
(Cue studio audience applause.)
TRUTH NUMBER TWO: Of course, he is leaving the Warriors. He wants to prove he can build his own legacy without the Splash Brothers. He’s mad at the team’s training staff for his Achilles rupture. And he can live in New York with his best friend, Kyrie Irving, his next great adventure for a peripatetic dude. Sorry, but Kevin Durant will sign with the Brooklyn Nets!
(Cue studio audience booing.)
We spent the better part of the day trying to figure out if we believed the voice of Andre (I Think He’s Coming Back, But If Not, I Love Him Anyway) Iguodala or the voice of SF Chronicle beat writer Connor (I’d Put It At North of 75 Percent That He’s Gone) Letourneau.
Either way, the drama should be resolved by Sunday at 3 pm, when NBA free agency officially opens.
(Cue studio audience applause)
That is, unless Durant and his people decide to draw it out for several days, Hamptons-style.
(Cue studio audience booing.)
Like the rest of the free world, I am privy to no inside information on Durant’s thinking. It’s clear that no one else is, either, given the wild variance of guesses that NBA insiders toss out daily. Just today, Stephen A. Smith said Durant to the Nets was “pretty much done.” That’s not to be confused with the Ric Bucher Bleacher Report from April that said Durant to the Knicks was a “done deal.” And that’s not to be confused with Scottie Pippen’s belief on ESPN earlier this week that Durant’s injury brought him to reality, deepened his bond with his Warriors teammates and that he’s in a “good place” to stay with the Warriors.
(Cue studio audience sounding confused, murmuring.)
So now I get to chime in, Jock Blog-style, using my sources of “Life Experience”, “Former Beat Writer Nose for News” and “My Guess Is As Good As Yours” to say . . . . .
I think Durant will sign with Brooklyn.
(Cue studio audience not only booing, but out of their seats shouting and gesturing, ‘Maury Povich-Who’s the Real Father?’ style.)
I know, I know. It sucks to tell Warriors fans that Chase Center will open not only with 22nd century seat prices, but with no Durant and with Klay Thompson on crutches.
But this is life, sports fans. You don’t get nice things. And if you do get nice things, they only stay nice for a little while, and then they go away — as I was just saying to my good friend, Buster Posey.
(Cue studio audience with a sad murmur of understanding.)
I’ve said all along on our show that “KD is a different cat” — and he is. He can be unbelievably generous, as he’s shown with his commitment to the youth education center in his hometown and his tornado relief in Oklahoma. He can be wry and funny and local, as he’s shown in his two acceptance speeches for ‘Murph and Mackie Bay Area Player of the Year.’ He’s shown he has millennial rabbit ears, as he’s shown with the creation of burner accounts late at night, alone in his kitchen.
It just seems to add up that New York is his next adventure. He’s done Baltimore/D.C. He’s done Austin, Texas. He’s done Seattle. He’s done Oklahoma City. He’s done Oakland and the Bay. And now he conquers the Big Apple. Or, at least the borough across the Brooklyn Bridge from the Big Apple.
And it’s OK. He should always be venerated as a great Bay Area champion, even if it was a ship passing in the night for three years. He knows, and you know, that Steph Curry and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are the homegrown heartbeat of the Warriors. And you should probably just wish him well, and give him a standing ovation on the way out the door.
(Cue studio audience with end-of-show gratuitous standing ovation.)