Kevin Durant Reveals Meeting Details With $132,500,000,000 Man in 2016 NBA Free Agency

Kevin Durant reveals more details behind one of NBA Twitter's most well-recognized and memed tweets.

Kevin Durant Reveals Meeting Details With $132,500,000,000 Man in 2016 NBA Free Agency

Kevin Durant (FS Image)

Kevin Durant and LeBron James have a lot in common. These are two guys who were quite beloved as young players, but began to be hated when they made moves in free agency. Like James with the Miami Heat, Durant also formed a superteam during the prime of his career along with Stephen Curry. The events of the 2016 NBA free agency window will always be looked at with the foreboding of what followed.

Durant took meetings with quite a few teams in the first few days of free agency. In addition to meeting Curry, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala and Klay Thompson at the Hamptons, Durant also took meetings with the Boston Celtics, LA Clippers and the OKC Thunder. Each of these teams, at one point, thought that they had their man. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer played point on their recruitment pitch.

The meeting between Durant and the Clippers’ front office prompted a whole bunch of memes. This was just a summer removed from when Chris Paul and Blake Griffin successfully coaxed DeAndre Jordan as Chris Broussard created one of the quintessential peak NBA Twitter moments. In line with the same tweet, a reporter sent a tweet about the Clippers’ meeting with KD that brought people tears of laughter:

Clippers meeting with Durant was “intense” and “at one point Steve Ballmer was crying” but everyone grew closer and a big lesson was learned.

These words have been immortalized in NBA Twitter lore for those that have been plugged in. It keeps cropping up in improvised versions of memes all the time on NBA Reddit as well.

Kevin Durant was asked about the truth behind this incident on several occasions before. However, he chose to broke his silence about it today, noting that the tweet author had found the key to infinite engagement farming before the term was even a real thing discussed by people on social media.

Somebody crying was news to me, we didn’t know what engagement farming was back then, Aaron was ahead of his time.

If Aaron Bruski had truly sent the tweet with the intention of drumming up engagement, he was wildly successful.

Kevin Durant will be on the move from the Phoenix Suns again

Many fans believe that Durant was fully on course to be a one-team legend like Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant and Dirk Nowitzki when he played for the OKC Thunder. Prior to his 2014-15 injuries and his trade in the summer of 2016, Durant had a 100% approval rating among basketball fans. People considered him to be the humble, people’s champion rival to LeBron James at the top of the NBA pyramid.

Since the departure from OKC, Durant has never really found a true basketball home through nine years of searching. He won championships in the Bay Area, but the fanbase always gives more flowers to their unanimous MVP. He had the Nets fan base by a chokehold, but their lack of success drove him away. The Suns’ media and fanbase hasn’t been nearly as welcoming to him as he was looked at before the 2023 trade.

It would be interesting to see where Durant ends up in this year’s trade market. The Spurs are said to have made a move for him, and Durant is also reportedly interested in joining them. This trade deal would make the Spurs one of the most intriguing stories in the league next year.

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