Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook were never best friends during their time together as teammates with the Oklahoma City Thunder. We know this for certain now because Durant has admitted it.
In a wide-ranging interview with Paul Solotaroff of Rolling Stone, Durant opened up about his relationship with Westbrook and how the two were never more than “work friends.”
“We had our own cliques that we hung with on the road. Russell had his guys, I had mine,” Durant explained. “It was never a bad thing. Just how it was.”
Both Westbrook and Durant have done their best to downplay the tension, but it became quite obvious over the years. It is even more so now, especially when Durant talks about how the camaraderie of the Golden State Warriors was one of the main reasons he left Oklahoma City.
“They just liked each other so much and were so relaxed. I thought, ‘These are some chill-ass dudes I wouldn’t mind hooping with,'” Durant said of meeting with the Warriors. “I wasn’t even asking, ‘How do we play together?’ I was asking, ‘Where do y’all go eat, do y’all hang out together?'”
For further evidence of the growing rift, one NBA source told Solotaroff that Durant made up his mind about not wanting to play with Westbrook anymore.
One team particularly drew his notice: the ball-don’t-stop, breakneck-tempo, blowout-happy Warriors. These dudes play just like I do, he thought. They see the floor the way I see it. There, he could “set picks and get hockey assists,” the small-ball things he’d likely never get to do as long as he played with Westbrook. “It’s an open secret that the fun had stopped there and it was never going to flow with Russell,” says a highly placed source in the league. “Russell’s a my-turn, your-turn kind of guy, and don’t think defenders don’t know that. When Russ had the ball, KD’s guy would leave him to go and help guard Russ.”
So there you have it. Again, none of this is a surprise. Neither Westbrook nor Durant have openly admitted that they grew tired of playing together, but they don’t have to when they take shots like this at one another. Would a championship in OKC have changed history? Most likely, but it’s also possible the Thunder never won a ring because Durant and Westbrook simply couldn’t coexist enough on and off the court.
