Wednesday Bolts – 2.18.15

Dane Carbaugh of Sporting News on Westbrook: “Then there’s Westbrook himself, an unlikely hero in any scenario. His permanent scowl is offsetting, diametrically opposed from the projected tranquility of his running partner in Kevin Durant. The narratives around him are abundant and largely unpleasant. He steals shots; he gambles; he doesn’t defer to the second-best player on the planet. Let Westbrook be Westbrookhttps://dailythunder.com/wp-admin/post-new.php is a double-edged sword in which the namesake aggressor prefers to surprise his opponents, clunking them over the head with the haft rather than cutting them across their length.  This attitude has made Westbrook an agitating figure in the NBA. Oklahoma City’s second star is player built for today’s tenure of button-pushing columnists. He is a villain, ripe for Hot Takes as well as a takedown. He’s unlikable, right up until the moment his play actualizes the meaning of #LeaguePassAlert.  It’s also why he was the best part of the All-Star Game. And its MVP.”

Zach Baron of GQ with Kevin Durant: “I had a fiancée, but…I really didn’t know how to, like, love her, you know what I’m saying? We just went our separate ways.” Monica Wright, WNBA player, something like a high school sweetheart. One night Kevin got so full of feelings he just up and proposed to her. “We was just hanging out, chilling. And I felt the energy. I felt, I need to do this right now. And I just did it. I was like…We’re engaged right now? We’re about to get married? So I was just like, cool! I love this girl. But I didn’t love her the right way.”

This was in GQ’s interview with Kobe and he was talking about how he coped with the Colorado incident, but it feels weirdly applicable to what Kevin Durant is currently experiencing: “I started to consider the mortality of what I was doing,” he says. At the time, he was 24. “What’s important? What’s not important? What does it mean when everybody loves you, and then everybody hates your guts for something they think you did? So that’s when I decided that—if people were going to like me or not like me—it was going to be for who I actually was. To hell with all that plain vanilla shit, just to get endorsement deals. Those are superficial, anyway. I don’t enjoy doing them, anyway. I’ll just show people who I actually am…. The [loss of the] endorsements were really the least of my concerns.”

So this is why Kevin Durant hates the media…

Jeff Miller of the O.C. Register: “Well, Kevin, just between the two of us, most members of the media listen to you only because it is a requirement of our jobs, too. I gotta be honest, were it not a necessity, I’d never speak to any athletes or coaches. I’d just sit around at home, in my favorite SpongeBob pajamas and, in between reruns of “Three’s Company,” offer my sincere, heartfelt opinions on topics that, truth be told again, I’d otherwise never even think about.”

Anthony Slater on Reggie Jackson: “So there’s a chance the Thunder just rides this thing out. Jackson’s play and attitude have improved a bit of late and the expiration of the trade deadline would likely only help things. It would lift an emotional burden. Jackson would know, for sure, his residence for the rest of the season and would have two-plus months to improve his market value. Or maybe OKC will pull the trigger and Jackson has already played his last game in a Thunder uniform. We’ll know by Thursday afternoon.”