A lot has been written about the already powerful Golden State Warriors convincing former NBA MVP Kevin Durant to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder and create what amounts to a Super Team in Golden State. However, while the Warriors were only one year removed from their last NBA Championship and hired an MVP player considered one of the best in the NBA, one person doesn’t consider them a super team at all.
Kevin Durant spoke to ESPN following the Golden State Warriors NBA Finals victory over the Cleveland Cavaliers and he dismissed all talk about a super team.
Durant said there are a lot of reasons that the Warriors are not a super team.
Before Durant, the Warriors were great
Kevin Durant feels the Golden State Warriors can’t be called a super team because they were great before he even arrived. Durant pointed to how the Warriors built a team that made it to two consecutive NBA Finals before he ever arrived in Oakland. First of all, there is Steph Curry, who was the Warriors’ biggest star before Durant arrived. Kevin said if all the teams wanted Curry, they would have drafted him but they didn’t have faith in Steph while Golden State did.
Kevin Durant said that Klay Thompson was just considered average when he entered the NBA and became a much better shooter than anyone ever thought he would be.
The Golden State Warriors are the team that took the chance on him. Kevin then said no one wanted Draymond Green because they said he couldn’t play at the NBA level. All three of those players became NBA All-Stars and won an NBA title together in 2014-15.
After that, Kevin Durant even pointed at Shaun Livingston, a player with a “crazy knee injury” that no one wanted.
Andre Iguodala was traded a couple of times and no one wanted him. Kevin Durant said this was no super team – ignoring his own position on the team.
The NBA super team
While Kevin Durant says that the Golden State Warriors are not a super team, Draymond Green seemed to accept the title. After the NBA Finals win, Green lashed out at LeBron James and said that LeBron invented the super team first.
LeBron responded that was ridiculous and pointed to the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets from past years.
However, the fact remains that the year after LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Golden State Warriors in an NBA Finals rematch, the Warriors signed one of the best players in the NBA to join a team that was built organically- turning them into a super team in the eyes of many fans. Kevin Durant just says they play well together but no one can discount the talent that the Warriors bought to win their second NBA title.