Some were surprised when Kevin Durant didn’t even meet with the Washington Wizards during free agency. Durant is a native of the area, and there was a belief that his hometown team might be able to make a compelling case to bring him back home.
As it turns out, the Wizards didn’t get a meeting with Durant precisely because they were home.
“I don’t want to open up anything in the past, but I really just didn’t want to play at home,” Durant said, via Tim Bontemps and Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post. “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?'”
We heard previously that the prospect of dealing with ticket requests and the stress of playing at home for 41 games a year was not something Durant wanted to deal with. Some players would see the appeal, but Durant is not one of them.
