Kevin Durant explains why he never considered joining his hometown Wizards

The Warriors superstar was shaped by the Washington area, but "really just didn't want to play at home"

Kevin Durant didn’t give the Washington Wizards a meeting last summer. It didn’t matter that they employed his former Oklahoma City Thunder coach Scott Brooks or his former high school assistant coach David Adkins. When Durant hit free agency, he knew he had no desire to play at home, via the Washington Post’s Tim Bontemps and Adam Kilgore:

“I don’t want to open up anything in the past, but I really just didn’t want to play at home,” Durant said. “It was nothing about the fans. Being at home, I was so happy with that part of my life -- playing at home, being in front of friends, hanging with friends and family every day. That was a part of my life that has come and gone.

“I was like, I’m trying to build a second part of my life as a man living in a different part of the country, just trying to do different things. I did everything I was supposed to do in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, I felt. Now it’s time to do something new. I didn’t want to come back. That’s just my thought process behind it. It had nothing to do with basketball, the fans, the city.

“It was just like, ‘All right, that part of my life I’ve conquered already. What’s next?’”

…

“I thought about what it might be like,” Durant said. “I thought about it. But it made LeBron’s situation different because he got drafted there. So it was like he was home already, so he knew what it was like. It wasn’t like it was his first time going back. For me, I never played at home. I didn’t know what it would be. I know every time I go back it’s pretty hectic, and I just wanted to focus on basketball and not have to worry about a lot of stuff that comes with being at home.

“It’s always good going back, but I would rather play in a different city.”

You should read the whole feature, which explores how the area shaped him as well as why he chose to play college basketball elsewhere and how he is connected with his hometown now. From the Wizards’ perspective, though, Durant’s concern about distractions at home is old news. Two seasons ago -- a full 18 months before he became a free agent -- he visited the Verizon Center and it was a circus. Everybody knew Washington was maintaining financial flexibility in order to make a run at him, and fans showed up with #KD2DC signs and custom-made Wizards jerseys with Durant’s name on the back. Durant called the whole thing “crazy” and “disrespectful,” saying that the fans should have been supporting their team rather than luring him. After he made those comments, he was booed in Washington last November.

There are surely still some Wizards supporters who dream of Durant, John Wall and Bradley Beal challenging the Cleveland Cavaliers in the Eastern Conference. They certainly would have been a formidable trio. Realistically, though, that scenario never seemed likely, and Washington might have been better off not planning to go after him in the first place. Fortunately, the Wizards have managed to build one of the East’s best teams without Durant, thanks largely to Beal staying healthy, the emergence of Otto Porter and Brooks’ leadership this season. It would be a lot harder for Washington to hear Durant saying this stuff if the franchise was down in the dumps. 

Durant and the Golden State Warriors will visit the Wizards for the only time this season on Tuesday. He might get booed, but he doesn’t have any animosity toward the organization.

“Hometown team, I want them to do well, and I want Scotty to do well as a coach,” Durant said, via the San Francisco Chronicle’s Connor Letourneau. “He’s turned that thing around after a slow start, playing championship-caliber basketball and you got to respect it.”