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Traina Thoughts: Kevin Durant Wants Media to 'Grow Up,' Which Is Truly Ironic
1. Kevin Durant has been in the NBA for 12 years and still doesn’t know how to handle the media.
In case you haven’t seen it yet, Durant got very snippy in his postgame press conference Wednesday night because of reports that have him joining the Knicks as a free agent after this season.
Instead of just saying, “I’m not going to comment on that” or “I’m not talking about free agency during the season,” Durant poured gasoline on the fire by scolding the media for its reporting.
In fairness, anyone might be embarrassed to be linked to the Knicks, but Durant made matters so much worse by telling the media to "grow up."
This is a man who fights with high school kids in the comments section on Instagram and he’s telling people to grow up? That’s precious.
Every single free agent in the history of sports gets asked about free agency when they’re on the last year of a deal. Whether anyone likes that or not, it's just part of the gig. For Durant to act like he’s been singled out is comical. From the day LeBron left Cleveland for Miami, people speculated on him going back to Cleveland. From the day LeBron went back to Cleveland, people speculated on him joining the Lakers. This is what happens when you're a superstar who's about to hit the open market.
This is also what happens when you decide to take the easy route to a championship and take all the fun and intrigue out of the postseason by creating a "super team."
One last thing. Since the Warriors superstar made sure to call out a reporter by name over his report that Durant would join the Knicks, his entire rant Wednesday night will look even worse if he ends up signing with New York in the offseason. And if Durant thinks the media scrunity is bad now, good luck surviving the New York media.
2. As you probably know by now, the Mavericks traded Harrison Barnes on Wednesday night right in the middle of the game. The video of Barnes's reaction to the madness was straight out of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode.
3. Who knew Rob Gronkowski's partner in crime when it came to "stepping out" and partying was Bill Belichick?
4. The Oscars' first choice for a host this year was The Great One.
5. Mets pitcher Noah Syndergaard either wants to keep hitting or he doesn't want to face designated hitters or both. Either way, this is a great GIF choice.
6. The man who broke the story about ESPN firing Baseball Tonight host Adnan Virk, New York Post sports media reporter Andrew Marchand, joined the latest SI Media Podcast to give all the details on the wild story. Marchand explains how ESPN found out about Virk reportedly leaking information to Awful Announcing and why they decided to fire him instead of suspend him.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on iTunes.
7. THE ROCK VIDEO OF THE DAY: We can only dream of what The Rock hosting the Oscars would've been like. There's no doubt he would've treated us to a song, so let's remember a Rock classic.
Catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts here and check out the Sports Illustarted Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina here. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter here.
IN CLOSING: I don't think it's unreasonable for athletes in any sport to not want to be traded DURING a game.
