Russell Westbrook was reportedly one of the reasons why Kevin Durant chose to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder and sign with the Golden State Warriors. Durant and Westbrook have been the league’s most terrorizing and entertaining duo. They may not have been the best of friends, but there certainly was a relationship.
Durant knows that relationship won’t ever be the same, as he said in an interview with Chinese affiliate Sina:
“I just told him, I let him know how I felt. And you obviously, our relationship probably won’t ever be the same again, but it’s something I wanted to do and I expressed that to him. Hopefully, he respected it.”
In one sense, you could speculate that Durant and Westbrook never became the kind of close friends that made them ride-or-die loyal to each other. If that were the case, Durant probably doesn’t leave. Durant’s decision, as he might even admit, was a selfish one. He had to sacrifice plenty, including whatever relationship he had with Russell Westbrook, to make this decision.
The situations have their clear differences, but a similar dynamic we saw when Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal split up might ensue with Durant and Westbrook. Their relationship definitely won’t be the same, because now they’re competitors, and every time they match up here on out, it will be advertised as a storyline for the game. It’ll also become a thing of who can get closer to an NBA title without the other, even though Durant just gave himself a nice head start.
Westbrook doesn’t come off as the type to sulk over something like this. Some would even joke that he’s happy to be free of Durant taking up his shot attempts. Either way, their first time matching up and seeing each other should show us all that we need to know about their relationship.
