2017-2018 NBA Season Thread [Archived] Basketball • Page 16

I genuinely feel bad for KD, he seems like a great guy and things get to him. You can't fault him for that

 

I don't. You should be a bit more carefree of the critics when you're one of the best players in the game who has won MVP and a championship in your time.

 

It makes me more impressed at the level of sheer talent he possesses that allows him to be so great while being mentally kinda weak

 

Having the expectation or standard that everyone should be tough af like mj was is just silly.

 

lol I don't think that makes KD mentally weak at all

 

Why do we have to act like NBA players shouldn't have feelings? Imagine if millions of people were criticizing you for a decision you thought was best for you

 

If only this was how emotions worked

 

I mean, it's not him having feelings that I'm referring to as mentally weak, it's his refusal to acknowledge the legitimate criticism of what him going to the Warriors meant for the league and for his surefire path to a title, and his historically thin skin to any criticisms at all. Most athletes don't snap back at random twitter users that say anything negative about them, let alone having secret accounts to do so. And it's not that "athletes having feelings" is an issue, it's that when you make a decision like the one he made, that reaction should be 100% expected and accepted, but he still goes on about how it didn't make it any easier for him and says some shit like "I wake up at 8:30am and work hard" which just makes it sillier.

One of the biggest things most great athletes have in common is their ability to ignore the noise, but Durant has always been the exact opposite, so it's interesting to me that he's still able to perform as such a high level in big moments. Perhaps weak wasn't the right word, but you can tell it never sits right with him and that's something that could ruin a lot of athletes' confidence. I guess it's easier to play your game and be very good when you're Kevin Durant and you're physically designed to be a great basketball player.

 

Who cares that he has feelings and is upset by people shitting allover him? He's a human being, not a robot. The biggest issue with the league is that we still refer to the olden days for literally everything, if Barkley or half the other good players had social media you best believe they would be doing very similar things. It was much easier back then to ignore all the noise because all they had to do was stay out of the public eye and not watch sports television.

The standards have changed and it's only going to change further because of the constant strain on athletes to deliver more content. This is how they communicate with most of their friends. They're literally surrounded by it. Lebron dealt with the heel turn amazingly, I still don't think enough people give him credit for that but you can't hold everyone to that standard. Not everyone wants to be hated and judged that harshly. This is the human psyche, not a game...

 

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I'm not. Maybe I'm bitter that GS are gonna win the next three championships but it doesn't matter. I love the emotion and the drama and the silliness of him having alt accounts. It makes everything way more fun.

 

His decision to join to Warriors was legal, legitimate, and ultimately up to him. Athletes have every right to make the decision that they think is best for them, despite what fans think about how it impacts the league. I know this is rehashing an old argument. But besides that- of course he's going to defend himself and his decision. Has he ever said that that he doesn't think it's a legitimate criticism? He's not going to come out and say "I acknowledge my decision was dumb," because it's his job to play basketball for the team that he's signed with.

I bet there are tons of players with accounts like these lol

Is this true though? When KD played at OKC this year he absolutely dominated despite what was going on around him. He didn't look shaken at all - a real display of 'mental toughness' imo. I can think of a bunch of athletes (aside from someone like MJ) who were great AND had a temper.

 

Also, yea. Expecting male athletes to not respond to hate and criticism is pretty toxic and just not fair. Like @Whatjuliansaid, they're people with feelings and families and egos

 

Yah and I wish they'd accidentally tweet those tweets from their real accounts cause it's hilarious

 

I'll defend Durant on here, but I think its mostly just funny.

 

I don't think the majority of people get tweeted and messaged pure hatred hundreds or thousands of times a day simply for moving to a different state and playing with different players. They already are more enduring than most people just by default. The expectancy of toughness for them is probably far higher than it should be simply for being a male athlete, for whatever reason they have to exude masculinity to be admired. It's a stupid standard in the first place.

If you want to make the case that it causes concern within the competitiveness of the league and it's making the game worse, that's a viable argument but that has nothing to do with the player himself. He's just doing what's allowed within the rules, why is he hated so much yet silver doesn't get shit for letting that kind of thing happen? It's a weird double standard to have. If you don't want things like that to happen then try to prevent it in the future, but once again I think good gms will still figure out loopholes.

 

Kustok is gonna do great on commentary

 

I'm not really talking emotions in general. In this instance, I'm talking about responding through a made up Twitter account that isn't presented as being himself. As Durant himself said, it was an idiotic and immature choice to go this way. Writing THAT off as an emotional reason is just relying on a consistent loop that approves whatever Durant wants to do. I just noted the MVP and championship because most fans/critics will see him as having achieved all that you could want in the game, with the move being to Golden State complicating it even further.

There's no way I would criticize him having for having an emotional response to things related to the game. That's human and every player goes through this. Ultimately, he might have more of an issue with this than others, but, in this instance, I think he could've worked through it in a better manner.

 

Creating sock puppet accounts to defend jumping at winning an easy championship when you're a bazillionare is really funny. But I think it's funny when people create fake accounts on here to yell at me too.

 

What is happening in Boston

 

This all has to be one big joke, right?

 

late to the party but i still love the Minnesota unis. probably cause the color scheme is from the Seahawks so i'm used to it / love that bright green, but those look great.

 

You can't necessarily prove that a basketball isn't flat.

 

I've had inflated basketballs that were flat before, air-wise. If that never happened to you you prob aren't human tho.

 

JR Smith never understood this until he played with Kyrie.