New Golden State Warrior Kevin Durant has denied a report that said he lied to former teammate Russell Westbrook about leaving Oklahoma City.
Days after ESPN’s Royce Young said on the TrueHoop podcast that the former OKC star told teammates he would be staying, Durant spoke with The Vertical on Thursday and told them he never told Westbrook and teammates he would be staying with the Thunder.
“It’s false,” Durant told The Vertical on Thursday. “I didn’t say that – words about me telling Russell or Nick that I would stay or leave never came out of my mouth. We met as teammates, but no promises came out of it. In this day and age, I can’t control anything people claim out there. Someone can go out and say something random right now, and people will believe it.
“I never told Russell or Nick [Collison], ‘All right, guys, I’m coming back to the Thunder’ – and then a week later, I decide not to. Never happened. I don’t operate like that. I heard people say that story, but it’s not the truth.”
Since the podcast was released, Young has come out and clarified the comments he made about Durant.
In a TrueHoop podcast on Tuesday, I misspoke in saying that Durant specifically told Westbrook he was coming back.
These were not direct quotes meant to be attributed to Durant. It was an attempt to characterize what Westbrook thought his situation was going to be in Oklahoma City and how Durant’s leaving impacts his thinking about his future.
Young managed to cause a stir with his appearance on the podcast. As we can see now, it might have been overblown. It also seems that the public is desperate for there to be a big rift between Durant and OKC, when in reality that might not be the case at all.
Even with the clarification, expect this to come up the first time the Thunder and Warriors face-off this season.
