Durant: Thunder's 2025 title fulfills his OKC legacy — SkimNews
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- Kevin Durant arrived with the relocated franchise in July 2008 at age 19 and in his second NBA season, and said Oklahoma City received the rebuilding team "with open arms," with crowd energy that felt different from any arena he had played in.
- Oklahoma City Thunder reached the NBA Finals in their fourth season in Oklahoma, losing to the Miami Heat in 2012 with Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden — all future MVPs — before Durant left for Golden State in 2016.
- Sam Presti took the young team to the site of the Oklahoma City bombing and insisted they engage the community, and Durant credited the GM with installing the blue-collar, disciplined standard he embodied: matching clothes on road trips, moving "as a unit."
- Oklahoma City fans stood during warmups and packed the arena, while small towns across the state shut down to watch, Durant said, describing a league-wide contrast where games in bigger markets "felt like coming to those games was just another hobby."
- Oklahoma City Thunder won the 2025 championship, completing what the Durant-Westbrook-Harden core could not; Durant said he wished his team had been the one to do it and credited Presti plus Shai and Jalen Williams for building on that foundation.
- Kevin Durant acknowledged that some in Oklahoma City viewed his 2016 departure with acrimony and that he has at times been welcomed back with boos, even while calling himself "really, really" grateful to be an alumnus with "a soft spot" for the state.
- Houston Rockets face the Thunder on Oct. 31 in Durant's first meeting with his former team this season, the 19-year veteran now in his second season in Houston.
Why it matters: Durant's account recasts his eight-year Oklahoma City tenure — an exit remembered with acrimony, a return greeted with boos — as the foundation for the 2025 championship, with Presti and the Shai-Jalen Williams core building on what he describes. His Oct. 31 matchup against the Thunder puts that tension back in play with the Rockets.
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