Keith Strudler: Durant’s Heel Turn

In professional wrestling, the term “heel” refers to the bad guy. The guy who plays dirty and usually hits someone with a chair. The “face,” or “baby face,” is the good guy, the hero. He’s the one we all cheer for and always does the right thing, at least by professional wrestling standards. Perhaps the most dramatic moment in the sport – and yes, I know it’s fake – is when a good guy, a “face,” turns into a bad guy. It’s called a “heel turn,” and it’s as predictable as an episode of Bar Rescue. Hulk Hogan did it, Stone Cold Steve Austin did it. If you’ve been in the square circle long enough, chances are you went from good to bad. And perhaps back again.

NBA All-Star Kevin Durant may not be a wrestler, but he may have just taken one of the most severe heel turns in athletic history. Until this past Monday, Durant was a leading man, a face. He spent his entire professional basketball career with the Oklahoma City Thunder and led the small market underdog to the NBA Finals in 2012, where they lost to LeBron James and the Miami Heat. Then after losing teammate James Harden to Houston, Durant stayed in flyover country and came about two minutes from knocking off the 73-win Golden State Warriors in this year’s Western Conference Finals. But it’s more than that. When Durant accepted the league MVP award in 2014, he tearfully thanked his mother for raising him as a single parent. When Oklahoma was ravished by tornadoes, he wrote a million dollar check to the Red Cross. He’s not only a mega-star, he’s a good guy, the kind of guy you cheer for even if you have no tie to the Oklahoma City Thunder, which, to be honest, very few people do.

All that changed Monday, July 4^th, when news broke that Durant would not be resigning with the Thunder, as was assumed, but instead joining the already dominant Golden State Warriors. The same team he nearly conquered this past season in what would have been a monumental upset. The same team that already posted the best season in the history of the NBA and should have won its second consecutive title, if not for that guy named LeBron. The same team that already has three all-stars, including the two time league MVP in Stephen Curry, and a roster deeper than a college poetry class.

In one simple HR maneuver, Durant went from face to heel. He went from the guy that carried a city on his shoulders to the one taking the easy way out. ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith said it was the weakest move he’s ever seen from a superstar. Former NBA great Charles Barkley said Durant is trying to cheat his way to a championship. The list goes on, and that’s just from players and writers. Never mind all the fans – particularly those from Oklahoma City – who’ve used Durant jerseys as fire kindle.

We’ve seen this play before, most recently when LeBron James left Cleveland to win titles in Miami with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. That was a little different, although not so nuanced that it’s worth discussing. Needless to say, Cleveland fans found forgiveness in their hearts when James, both the favorite and prodigal son, returned home to bring the city its first title in a lifetime.

So the question here isn’t whether fans will get mad when players leave. That’s a given. And I suppose a right, even if it doesn’t make sense. No one goes ballistic when Frank from accounting takes another job. But such is the irrational nature of fandom – and why Kevin Durant makes $30 million a year, while Frank is happy to afford his car payments.

The question is whether athletes should care. Fans have suggested Kevin Durant should want to win on his own, or at least take a path that requires more resistance. Yet few of us wouldn’t do the same, given the opportunity. So if you’re a lawyer, and you work for a small, underfunded firm in the suburbs, and you lose a lot of cases to agencies with more resources, you’d be really, really excited to join that winning team in the city. Because then you’d win, which is what most lawyers aspire to do. Same thing goes for journalists or engineers or even professors. Find me a scholar that won’t jump to Harvard given the chance.

Kevin Durant is simply doing what he’s been trained to do all his life. He’s going to compete for a championship, which is much easier when surrounded by Curry and Klay Thompson than with Russell Westbrook – even if that’s pretty good too. And in today’s NBA landscape, where players have built friendships off the court, and where shoe companies inspire more loyalty than cities and teams, there’s no such thing as an enemy. Which, according to fans, is what Golden State was supposed to be to Durant.

Of course, that’s not the case. Which is why Durant is unapologetically now a Warrior. And why, to most of America, he’s also a heel.

 
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