Proof that there is too much time in the day, too many hours to fill with takes and too many open acres of cyberspace:
This Jock Blog will cover the possibility of a Kevin Durant reunion with the Warriors.
KD.
Good ol’ KD.
He of the two NBA Finals MVPs and the more-than-two burner accounts.
You want him back?
You willing to blow up the whole “Light Years Plan” to bring him back? You willing to undermine the last two years of stockpiling Jordan Poole, Andrew Wiggins, James Wiseman, Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody to bring him back?
If I told you Gary Payton II would come back with him, would that sweeten the pot?
(Just kidding on GP2. Just wanted to fire a 21-gun salute to everyone’s favorite Portland Trail Blazer, passing Dame Lillard by a nose.)
Durant’s eternal wanderings make me think of old songs about travelers. Drop a quarter in the juke and play Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” when KD enters the bar. Or if you want to get more soulful, serenade him late at night with an a cappella “Poor Wayfaring Stranger”.
KD wanders through this world of woe, like that protagonist.
Or perhaps the analogy for KD is that significant other in your life — particularly from your late teens and early 20s — who you had on-again, off-again, on-again, off-again flings. Just when you think you’ve moved on from that significant other, here comes a text, or a call, or a DM and . . . well, here we go again.
We’ve all been there.
And we’ve all given in — which leads us to me actually entertaining the idea of Durant returning to the Bay.
Time fades out the Draymond/KD beef at Staples Center, and brings into sharp focus Durant pulling up from 3 in Cleveland to murder LeBron and the Cavaliers and win a title.
My first instinct was: Yes. Bring him home. With KD — even given the haul you’d trade — the Warriors could win two more championships in the next three years. Six titles for Steph?!?!? Six titles for Klay?!?!? Six titles for Draymond?!?!? Holy Michael Jordan, Batman!
We’ve all been there. We’ve all answered the call, text, DM.
Then, days go by and you realize why there was an “off-again” component to the relationship. For whatever reason, the cost was too much — logistics, emotions, fit, you name it.
And that’s where I wind up with Durant-to-the-Warriors.
It was a glorious time, and half of Steph’s championship haul came with Durant. But there is a time and a place for everything, and KD-on-the-Dubs is a thing that has passed.
Not that it wouldn’t work. It would.
But if Joe Lacob and Bob Myers are serious about this whole “light years ahead” thing, their work to develop and acquire all those names mentioned above — Poole/Wiggins/Wiseman/Kuminga/Moody, and who knows who else they can groom? — would change “light years ahead” thing into “we’re ahead for this year and the next, and by 2026, we’re the Cohan Warriors.”
Nobody wants to be the Cohan Warriors.
Durant will be 34 on Opening Day, and while we are in the Tom Brady-ization Era of making age irrelevant, he is a man who has a ruptured Achilles on his medical resume.
Kuminga will be 20 on Opening Day. James Wiseman just turned 21. Jordan Poole just turned 23. Andrew Wiggins, the graybeard of the group, is 27.
I mean . . .
So while we salute the Kevin Durant Era, and while I’m not against that statue at Chase that Durant himself once proposed, it’s time for cooler heads to prevail. We thank KD for the banners, and for the memories.
Time to let the King of the Road hop the next boxcar to the next down the line.