In episode 4579 of Kevin Durant engaging in discourse with anyone who mentions his name, he pushes back against a poorly aggregated quote from Suns owner Mat Ishbia’s interview with CNBC sports reporter Alex Sherman on Friday, in which Ishbia was talking about the realities of building a championship team in the 2020s and the mistakes he made in establishing a culture with his first moves as team governor.
After an NBA media aggregation account on X known for leaving important context out of interviews posted a quote from Ishbia during the interview that sounded like he was taking a shot at Durant, the post came across the former Phoenix Suns player’s social media timeline. Durant quickly responded with his first post on X in over two months that wasn’t him shouting out his media company, Boardroom, or his NFL and college football picks and parlays with FanDuel.
For the past few months, Durant has mostly been commenting on social media threads, something he referred to at the end of his post, presumably because he feels there is less criticism of him or negative basketball commentary.
While Durant may have felt that Ishbia was taking a jab at him and the team’s underwhelming seasons while he was a member of the Suns, the Suns owner didn’t feel he was doing so and went online to respond to Durant’s backlash, accusing Durant of not watching the entire clip from which the quote was aggregated.
What was being discussed when Ishbia said that bringing in a player like Kevin Durant doesn’t necessarily lead to championships was that, in his early days as owner, he didn’t do a good job of defining the type of culture he wanted the team and organization to have. While being complimentary and highlighting the greatness of the two-time NBA champion, he admitted that he did not build the right culture to help his stars succeed. He very memorably approved a trade for Durant on his second day as team owner.
But even after being called out by Ishbia for not taking a closer look at the quote, Durant doubled down, appearing to take a shot at the Suns for how they had to get rid of Bradley Beal, someone whom Durant reportedly wanted the team to trade for when he was in Phoenix. The team bought out Beal’s max contract last summer with two years remaining after not finding a team to trade him to. He’s still on their books for the next four seasons at a large number.
Along with responding to Ishbia, he also replied to a post praising him for his time on the team from an account with 124 followers and no connection to him or the Suns’ social media accounts, as well as to an account run by a New York Knicks fan speaking on the matter. Durant is known for responding to accounts with small and large follower counts that mention his name, and today was no different.
This is not This isn’t the first time Durant has taken shots at the Suns since he was traded to the Houston Rockets. He did it after hitting a game-winning three to beat the team back in January after he felt the team had disrespected him in his final season. However, Durant’s reactions to the poorly contextualized quote appear to be misaligned with what Ishbia was actually saying in the interview.