Colin Cowherd chides ‘apologetic’ NBA media for protecting Kevin Durant

Colin Cowherd is willing to call Kevin Durant out for making bad decisions, but he doesn’t expect the “apologetic” NBA media to join him.

With Durant and the Phoenix Suns getting trounced by the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first game of their first-round playoff series, Cowherd believes the two-time NBA Finals MVP is closer to irrelevancy than he is another championship.

“Kevin Durant is becoming increasingly irrelevant.”

— @ColinCowherd discusses Suns losing Game 1 to Timberwolves pic.twitter.com/7upKSGeVpO

— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) April 22, 2024

“What if Kevin Durant gets rolled here in round one by Minnesota?” Cowherd asked on his Fox Sports Radio show. “Not exactly a historical juggernaut. It will point out what the almost apologetic NBA media always fails to do. KD makes bad decisions.”

Cowherd proceeded to cite Durant’s decision to leave the Golden State Warriors mid-dynasty to join a historically extraneous franchise in the Brooklyn Nets as his top piece of evidence.

“At one point the argument that KD was better than LeBron was a furious debate. I rolled my eyes at it,” Cowherd boasted. “His skillset should put him in the top one or two in the last decade. And frankly, he’s getting lost.”

“Kevin Durant’s becoming increasingly irrelevant,” Cowherd continued. “It wasn’t long ago that the apologetic NBA media gave him a pass for leaving the NBA penthouse … for a fixer upper in Brooklyn, and then a remodel in Phoenix … NBA players have power and they have leverage. That doesn’t mean they make good decisions.

“What if he gets rolled by Minnesota after that debacle in Brooklyn. Anybody in the NBA media gonna call him out? You’d call out Mahomes, cause the NFL media isn’t here to protect its stars. It’s here to cover them. Report, not support.”

But has Durant always gotten media support? He wasn’t lauded for leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder, he wasn’t lauded for joining Steph Curry, he wasn’t lauded for teaming up with Kyrie Irving in Brooklyn and he wasn’t lauded for the way his Nets tenure ended. Durant won two titles and two NBA Finals MVPs on a team that wasn’t his. He may have briefly surpassed LeBron as the league’s best player, but Durant’s reign was very short-lived, if it was lived at all.

If Phoenix gets knocked out of the playoffs by Minnesota and Durant doesn’t get put on blast by the media, it won’t be because they’re protecting him. It will be because he’s 35 years old and a decade removed from his MVP season. He’s still an All-Star, but his run as the best or second-best player in the league is long over.

One person who would almost certainly argue the NBA media hasn’t always been supportive of Kevin Durant is Kevin Durant. There might not be an NBA player who battles media members, takes and narratives more than Durant. Surely, he’ll be made aware of Cowherd’s warning of irrelevancy.

[The Herd]