Many people were shocked to see Kevin Durant bolt the Thunder for the Warriors this offseason. Billy Donovan wasn't one of them.
The Oklahoma City head coach recently opened up about Durant's decision to leave the organization out of free agency.
Durant signed a two-year, $54.3 million contract to join two-time and reigning MVP Stephen Curry and the Warriors, who won an NBA-record 73 games last season, but fell one game shy of back-to-back titles.
Donovan said he wasn't surprised Durant walked, because he was never really sure he was going to stay.
"I don't know if I ever thought that he was necessarily going to come back," Donovan said on The Vertical Podcast with Woj (via The Score). "But I thought our meeting went very, very well. I thought it was positive, I thought it was very clear."
Durant, 27, has previously spent his entire nine-year career with the Thunder after being drafted in the second round by them back when they were the SuperSonics based in Seattle. He's coming off of winning the gold medal with Team USA which he called "therapy" after being cast as a villain for his offseason decisions.
The 2014 MVP and seven-time All-Star has averaged 27.4 points, 6.7 rebounds and 3.5 assists per game throughout his career.
The Thunder finished what proved to be their final season with Durant owning a 55-27 mark to finish first in the Northwest division and third in the Western Conference.
Oklahoma City then went on to defeat the Mavericks and Spurs in the postseason before falling to the Warriors, who went on to lose to the Cavaliers in seven games in the NBA Finals, blowing a 3-1 series lead.
Donovan said he did very little to recruit Durant to stay on board during the season.
"I talked to him a lot about the fact that I wanted to help him and our team get better," Donovan said. "I didn't want to get involved in the free agency talk at all, because one, it really was not my place. I didn't have a relationship with Kevin at all."
Much has been made of Durant's relationship with Russell Westbrook, which KD acknowledged will never be the same. Westbrook, a noted Taylor Swift fan, cause some buzz when he jammed out to Swift's "We Are Never Getting Back Together," which many took as a slight dig to Durant:
Most likely, it's just Westbrook continuing his well-known fandom of T-Swift.
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