Kevin Durant didn’t think he deserved a tribute video. The Brooklyn Nets gave him one anyway.
For Durant’s first game back at Barclays Center as an opposing player, the Nets played a video tribute to his three-plus seasons with the franchise. After signing with Brooklyn in 2019, Durant ended up playing just 129 games with the team. The 2021 team came close to beating the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in the second round before the partnership of Durant, Kyrie Irving and James Harden imploded. Eventually, all three forced trades.
After a poll on X suggested the majority of Nets fans thought Durant didn’t deserve a video, KD agreed, saying “The night will be better without it.”
When a fan complained that Durant had more trade requests than series wins in Brooklyn, he also agreed.
Tribute videos were once reserved for beloved stars returning to their old teams. Now, they’re used for any player coming back to an old team, no matter how little history they had. This was exemplified on a night in April 2021 when the Denver Nuggets played a video for Gary Harris, who had spent the first six-and-a-half years of his career in Denver, and for R.J. Hampton, a rookie who had played 25 games for the team.
By that standard, a Durant video was a no-brainer, even if he wasn’t interested in one. It’s a way for teams to say, “No hard feelings” and send a message to free agents that they take care of players. In addition, NBA teams have recently focused more on video content and in-arena entertainment. Any tribute video fills Jumbotron time, uses some of their huge archive of footage and allows the fans to cheer. Even if the player asked to be traded away.
That was the case in Portland, where Damian Lillard, who requested a trade last summer, received a long tribute video from the Trail Blazers – plus a second video highlighting his off-the-court work.
Even though Durant appeared stoic after the video played, he was gracious about it after his Phoenix Suns beat Brooklyn, 136-120.
In his postgame interview, Durant said that “Of course” he watched the video, and added, “I had some great moments here.”
Still, we have a feeling that the team will skip the tribute video when Kyrie Irving and the Dallas Mavericks visit on Sunday. After all, what could be a more appropriate tribute to Irving’s time in Brooklyn than to have his tribute video not show up?
