Kevin Durant criticizes ‘entitled’ fans for taking the NBA ‘for granted’

Kevin Durant has criticized ‘entitled’ fans in a newly-published interview as he looks to keep the Nets near the top of the Eastern Conference.

Brooklyn turned their season around with a 12-1 record in December, and they currently sit just 1.5 games off of the first-place Celtics with Durant shooting a career-best field goal percentage (56.8).

But in a discussion with ESPN, the Nets star said he thinks fans take the NBA ‘for granted’ as they don’t see the hard work and travel that comes in between the games they attend.

Kevin Durant is averaging a highly-efficient 29.9 points per game this season for the Nets

‘Fans have become more entitled than anything,’ Durant said, responding to the notion that fans may question effort in an average regular season game.

‘So they’re starting to question our motives for the game, or how we approach the game. The ones that do question — like who are you? Just shut up and watch the game tonight. We go as hard as we want to go. We go as hard as our bodies allow us to go at this point. 

‘They only see us when the games come on, but the travel, the practices, the shootarounds — we’re constantly moving around. So every game’s not going to be a high-intensity playoff game.’

The Nets have been much improved since Jacque Vaughn took over for Steve Nash

While every team has nights where the slog of the regular season gets to them, the Nets have showed a renewed commitment to winning under Jacque Vaughn.

The team has gone 23-8 since he took over after seven games, and his detail-oriented approach seems to have differed from the Steve Nash days.

Durant reportedly requested Nash be fired in the offseason, while he and teammate Kyrie Irving have publicly praised Vaughn’s ability to improve effort on the boards and his short leash in calling timeouts.

‘My whole thing was like — are we, does the process matter to us? And that’s one thing I did know that people here enjoy, grinding. So that was the most important thing for me,’ Durant said of his perspective over the summer.

‘Titles and stuff come with the process in which you — how you prepare. It was more so, “All right, are we going to practice harder? Are we going to pay more attention to detail?” Not just everybody else, all of us, me included. Is that going to be preached to us every day?’ 

Under Vaughn, the Nets have vastly cleaned up their defense and rebounding, with their ninth-best defensive rating putting them in the conversation as legitimate contenders.

Victor Wembanyama is a massive 7-foot-2 with the handles and shooting ability of a guard

However, most teams will not have realistic title hopes this summer, and the usual race to the bottom of the standings – and potentially top of the draft – will be even more feverish this season with the generational Victor Wembanyama awaiting one lucky team.

The ultra-competitive Durant isn’t opposed to that, and called tanking ‘smart business’ for certain teams. 

‘I don’t see a problem with it, because each year there’s only a few teams that can win it anyway,’ he said.

‘So the rest of the league is trying to figure out where they are. And that’s pretty smart business if you’re a team and you know you’re not going to be a playoff team or play-in team, you might as well try to play for [the No. 1 pick]. 

‘You might as well try to get some of the guys who probably won’t get real rotation minutes if you have a good team, get them some reps and maybe those guys can change their lives as well.’

The Nets’ 12-game win streak was snapped by Chicago on Wednesday, though it was no fault of Durant’s as he had 44 points in the loss.

They’ll look to get back on track vs. a Zion Williamson-less Pelicans team on Friday.