Kevin Durant is playing the "blame KD" hashtag card on social media after Suns owner Mat Ishbia went on CNBC and said, "bringing in super talented players like Kevin Durant doesn't necessarily lead to championships." There was a bit more context to Ishbia's comments, which we'll get to, but Durant took offense to the headline and, predictably, fired back at Ishbia. Durant: #blameKD even though KD stayed on top of his game at 36 and got u back this "culture" you love so much. Aye, Matthew acts like I got arrested for a DUI or sumn.
Back to threads 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 Ishbia: You obviously didn't watch the clip. 😂 Didn't blame you @Kdtrey5, but am happy with the culture we are building here in Phoenix. We got the right guys and right focus now and are excited for this season. ... Good luck this season in Houston.
Durant: U should be giving Thanks every chance u get. You don't have to pay me an absurd amount of money to play for another team. So let's address this one comment at a time, beginning with Ishbia's original answer, in its entirety, when he was asked on CNBC what, with the benefit of hindsight, he had learned from the trade his Suns made for Durant two days after his purchase of the team became official in February of 2023.
"The team was I think the [No.] 8 or 9 seed [in the Western Conference] when I bought the team," Ishbia said. "We had some good young players, and [the question was]: Can we get over the top? I basically was told, 'Hey, as an owner, stay out of it.
And so I said, 'Hey listen, we'll go into the luxury tax, go do whatever it takes to try to win a championship. "And so, we did that," Ishbia continued. "But it was more going and getting Kevin Durant.
Which ... good player, done a lot of great things, won two championships before, but it was not aligned with my vision. We had a couple years and it did not succeed, as we're well aware of at this point. "After that year, I decided [to] trade Kevin Durant, bring in my [own] GM (Brian Gregory replaced James Jones), bring in a new coach (Jordan Ott replaced Mike Budenholzer, who had replaced Frank Vogel), and get extremely involved personally with the type of guy and type of person we want in the organization, not just on the court but off the court.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
