Kevin Durant on Kobe Bryant: Media 'treated one of our legends like s---'
Kevin Durant doesn't like the way Kobe Bryant was treated by the media during his final years.
By
Zach Harper
•
3 min read
It's going to be pretty rare that a player sticks up for the way the media portrays another player rather than back the player against an entity that is there to both promote and criticize what all players do on and off the court. In the case of Kobe Bryant, he hasn't had a very good end to his career. With him announcing his retirement at the end of the 2015-16 season, people around the NBA are being asked for their thoughts on the Los Angeles Lakers' legend.
Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant was the latest to chime in, and he quickly went from praising Bryant to chastizing the media for the way Kobe has been talked about the last few years. Durant is not a fan of the way Kobe has been depicted and hopes the media can now start being nice about the Lakers' legend. From Anthony Slater of the NewsOK.com:
"I did idolize Kobe Bryant. I studied him, wanted to be like him. He was our Michael Jordan. I watched Michael toward the end of his career with the Wizards and I seen that's what Kobe emerged as the guy for us. I've been disappointed this year because you guys (media) treated him like s***. He's a legend and all I hear is about how bad he's playing, how bad he's shooting, time for him to hang it up. You guys treated one of our legends like s*** and I didn't really like it.
"Hopefully now you can start being nice to him now that he decided to retire after this year. It was sad the way he was getting treated. He had just an amazing career, a guy who changed the game for me as a player mentally and physically. Means so much to the game of basketball. Someone I'm always gonna look to advice for anything. Just a brilliant, brilliant, intelligent man. Sad to see him go. He put his mark on the game."
Durant has been pretty critical of the media over the last couple years, and it's easy to understand why. Not everything can be a public relations love fest, but that doesn't mean players won't take it personally when their lives, career, and personalities are picked apart in the hopes of unearthing a new story every day. With that said, what does he want the media to have said about Kobe over the last three seasons?
Despite how some may approach the profession, the media isn't there to promote all players all the time. When players play poorly, it gets talked about just like when players do well. That's the game. And with Kobe, there are only so many ways you can ignore the elephant in the room before it air balls another shot on a night when he takes more shots than he scores points.
Nobody in the media has denied Kobe Bryant as one of the greatest players the league has ever seen. His downfall has been understandable and predictable as he tried to come back from a devastating Achilles' tendon rupture, but it doesn't mean it's not newsworthy. He's played 54 games since the start of the 2013-14 season, shot 36.2 percent during that time, and just 26.9 percent from 3-point range while taking a large volume of shots. Because it's Kobe, poor play like that gets magnified even more, whether it's nice to the player or not.
Hopefully, Durant will never have to deal with that in his career. I'd imagine there are very few people who relish writing about how poorly Kobe has been because we all like fairytale endings instead. But if Durant wants us to lie about how Kobe has been recently, that's kind of a non-starter. We still remember the amazing career he's had, but talking about the distant past only gets you so far.
