KD Didn’t Need His Burner Account to Clap Back at Mat Ishbia

With the Houston Rockets’ preseason concluding on Friday and the remaining NBA teams finishing up yesterday, everyone has a bit of free time in their hands before Opening Night. Future Hall of Fame forward, Kevin Durant, chose to spend that time on social media. While that’s nothing out of the ordinary for most of us, this time it was a bit different. 

For context, the current owner of the Phoenix Suns, Mat Ishbia, joined CNBC Television to have a sit-down interview. When the conversation shifted to the acquisition of Kevin Durant in 2023, Ishbia said,  "I kind of just threw money at the problem,” and went on to say that paying for superstars doesn’t automatically lead to championships. 

I doubt Durant watched the full 23-minute discussion on YouTube, but he did seem to take issue with a post by Fullcourtpass: 

Even if you only have the context from that post alone, I don’t really know why KD’s so upset. Ishbia admitted that he tried to “buy” a championship, rather than building a team more organically. That’s a respectable admission in my books. 

Unfortunately, I think Houston’s superstar simply fell for the clickbait. About 17 minutes into the video, the interviewer, Alex Sherman, asked whether or not Durant had interest in, “building the culture of the Phoenix Suns.” Ishbia quickly shut that narrative down, calling KD a, “good player who’s done a lot of great things,” in his career. 

He clearly didn’t have anything negative to say about Durant, and actually gave him praise. Ishbia just explained that the focus shifted to rebounding and gritty defenders, rather than superstar firepower.

Who can blame him for thinking that way when he’s still paying Bradley Beal $19.4 million a year until 2030? Durant hinted at this in his follow up response: 

At this point, I have to assume Durant is just bored and deciding to troll a little bit online. That’s much better than the alternative.

Or is he actually this upset and holding grudges? Is he really misinterpreting random quotes and getting click-baited into nasty replies on social media? Does any of that actually matter? 

In reality, I don’t think it matters much at all. It doesn’t matter what his motives or feelings are, all that matters is how he performs on the court. If history tells us anything, he’ll still go out there and get efficient buckets all season long. 

Just this past February, we had some similar social media drama with another incident involving Durant’s burner accounts. Those comment were much harsher, and directed at current teammates. 

While there was still room to speculate on the origin or authenticity of that whole scandal, it didn’t impact the team on the court in the slightest. There’s no reason to believe this little bit of drama over the weekend will be any different. 

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