The Oklahoma City Thunder have finally recovered from Kevin Durant backstabbing the organization in 2016.
While for some the wound may never heal, the OKC Thunder being the favorites to win the 2025 NBA Finals certainly partly makes up for the agonizing Kevin Durant move in 2016.
Since leaving OKC, Durant has played for the Golden State Warriors, Brooklyn Nets, and the Phoenix Suns. Now as a 36-year-old Durant is rumored to leave the Suns.
Many have proposed a case for Durant returning to the Thunder. But let’s put that on the back burner for a moment, as Bill Simmons recently discussed a hypothetical scenario about KD’s career.
Durant may have climbed the stairs to stardom in a Thunder jersey, but no one can forget that he was initially drafted by the Seattle Supersonics.
Keeping that in mind, Simmons discussed how the city of Seattle had one of the ‘most devastating’ franchise relocations in NBA history.
“I was starting to wonder about them in the context historically of most devastating franchise relocations ever,” Simmons said on his podcast. “Because Seattle doesn’t just lose professional basketball starting in 2008 going forward. They also lose Durant.”
Simmons further claimed that if the franchise relocation had never happened, the Supersonics could have witnessed similar success as the Warriors.
“This is a completely different Kevin Durant conversation. If they just stay in Seattle, they’re gonna have a lot of money.
“Because Seattle is, I think very similar to Silicon Valley, like how the Warriors became the superpower,” Simmons added.
“Even though the Warriors were a mess up until the early 2000, then they had all this money that came in and they just built the superpower,” he pointed out.
When it comes to talking about the most loyal players in NBA history, it’s impossible not to mention Kobe Bryant as the Mamba spent all 20 seasons of his career with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Simmons believes that if Seattle still had a franchise, Durant could have had a career trajectory similar to that of Bryant.
“They could’ve built it. I just don’t think Durant ever leaves. I think he’s in Seattle for life. I think he’s still there. I think he’s like Kobe on the Lakers for Seattle. I really do. I don’t think he ever leaves,” Simmons stated.
He took it one step further and added that former NBA MVP Russell Westbrook may have been right alongside Durant in this hypothetical scenario.
“I think unless him and Westbrook grew up, that would’ve been the only way that that blows up,” Simmons concluded.
