The offseason was punctuated by rumors around Kevin Durant, who didn’t just make friends by asking to leave Brooklyn. Shaquille O’Neal in particular did not appreciate the player’s behavior, and he was once again very critical of him.
We have rarely known a stranger summer saga than that of Kevin Durant, during the 2022 offseason. The 2014 MVP went out of his way to leave the Nets, frustrated with the lack of collective results after three years with the New York superteam. He even went so far as to blackmail his leaders, claiming the head of the GM and his coach outright… without success however, and he is therefore still there.
Unsurprisingly, a good part of the observers fell on him, Charles Barkley notably settling his accounts with the double champion. The Hall of Famer said in particular that the number 7 kept chaining projects resulting in complete failures, often through his fault. An observation shared by Shaquille O’Neal, his colleague on the TNT channel and who held a relatively similar speech on his podcast:
Shaq on KD: “His career is a bitter failure”
“Charles Barkley is calling Kevin Durant’s career outside of Golden State an ‘abject failure’ … Do you agree?”@SHAQ: “Yeah. … If you’re the guy and you ain’t get it done, that means you failed.”#TheBigPodcast: https://t.co/1ccPgWJWvs pic.twitter.com/7RiqPAoUDu
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) September 1, 2022
Yeah, you can say he’s a complete failure, if you go back and look at his career as a top player and a leader and everything that goes with it. You see, we were there, we saw it. With OKC in 2016, he led 3-1. One last game to win, and when you’re the guy, all the pressure is on you. Many people talk about the “bus driver” story with Charles Barkley. Chuck was absolutely right.
He was not driving the bus in Golden State, only a passenger. When you win and we don’t respect you, don’t get mad at us. We’re talking about you, when you’re the leader, when you have the opportunity to win the title, can you go to the next level? We haven’t seen it yet. If you’re the man for the job and you can’t do it, it means you failed.
The Big Diesel had already released the sulphate on the winger a month ago, furious at the way the latter was acting in order to leave the Blacks and Whites. We therefore imagine that the former pivot must be delighted that Brooklyn did not give in, to the chagrin of the former Warrior. The good news is that the workforce on site seems very competitive. maybe the fourth year in the New York franchise will be the one for the Slim Reaper…
As usual, Shaquille O’Neal did not hold back at all when deciding on the Kevin Durant case. It’s hard to really prove the Hall of Famer wrong on this one, as recent events are not in favor of the superstar.
