Steph Curry wanted to run it back with Kevin Durant: ‘I was never hesitant’ (report)

Steph Curry wanted to run it back – with his former teammate and two-time Finals MVP.

In an interview with Rolling Stone that went live late Sunday night, Curry intimated the Golden State Warriors had internal conversations in the aftermath of Kevin Durant’s trade request to Nets owner Joe Tsai.

“Every team has those conversations, and obviously in our situation, they’re gonna call me and ask me, ‘How do you feel about it?’” Curry told Rolling Stone. “I was never hesitant. The idea of playing with KD and knowing who he is as a person, from our history in those three years, I think KD’s a really good dude.”

I think he is misunderstood. I think he has had certain things happen in his life that hurt his ability to trust people around him, in a sense of making him feel safe at all times. So all of those things, I understand, having played with him and gotten to know him. I love that dude.”

Curry said his desire to play again with Durant stems from both the success – and fun – the two had in the three seasons they spent together. When Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Warriors in 2016, Golden State became the most unbeatable team in basketball. They went on to win two straight championships and were well on their way to three-peating had Durant not ruptured his Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors.

A deal that could have sent Durant from the Nets to the Warriors would have likely included emerging stars Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins – though a wrinkle in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement prevents Wiggins and Nets star Ben Simmons from playing in Brooklyn together.

Curry suggested he has confidence in his team as currently constructed to win a championship again. After all, the Durant-less Warriors returned to the NBA Finals last season and defeated the Boston Celtics in six games, winning a championship before Durant’s Nets touched the Eastern Conference Finals.

Curry said he would have entertained a deal that sent multiple key pieces out the door if it meant playing with Durant again

“If you said, ‘Oh, KD’s coming back, and we’re gonna play with him,’ I had so much fun playing with him those three years, I’d be like, ‘Hell, yeah!’” he said. “Then you have to think: What does that actually mean? What does it look like? You tell me I’m playing with [current Warriors teammates Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, and Draymond Green], I’m like, ‘Hell, yeah!’”

There’s all types of emotion and things that happen to the league. And if anybody’s saying that you wouldn’t entertain that conversation — no disrespect to anybody on our team — but you don’t know how things work. But you also understand, like, if we run this thing back, I’ve got complete confidence in my team that we can win it again, as constructed.”

“So, all those things were true. And it started with me wanting to play with KD at the beginning. Yeah, it’s about winning, it’s about having fun, playing the game of basketball. And that was part of the reaction of, like, ‘Yeah, it’d be amazing.’ What does that actually mean?”

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from Boston Herald https://ift.tt/uyBaq9Q