Burner account or not, Kevin Durant is bitter, petty and entirely relatable
The future Hall of Famer’s behavior over the years has been rash and erratic.But it’s understandable given the scrutiny he finds himself underThey’re calling the posts the “KD Files”.There’s no definitive proof that Kevin Durant is the man behind the X account @gethigher77 (display name: getoffmydickerson), but if he isn’t, somebody has done a phenomenal impersonation.In various screenshots splashed across the internet, getoffmydickerson took shots at Durant’s teammates, as the player himself has done before.There was also creative and amusing trash talk, something Durant has shown a talent for.
Some of it crossed the line: the account made a reprehensible joke about supplying drones (Durant invests in the company Skydio, which has provided the Israel Defense Forces with weapons) and called Durant’s teammate Jabari Smith Jr “retarded”,When asked about @gethigher77, Durant said, “I’m not here to get into Twitter nonsense” – far from a denial that he was behind it, and in the eyes of many, confirmation that he was,We’ve got people writing in-depth proofs that the account is real,Not that getoffmydickerson is Durant’s only problem,Shortly after the tweets blew up, Boardroom, which defines itself as a “sports, media, and entertainment brand” co-founded by Durant and his agent Rich Kleiman, laid off three of its staff writers, rationalizing the move as part of a pivot to video.
(An aside: what’s the point of having career earnings of half a billion dollars if you’re not willing to invest some of it to protect your media company from financial headwinds?)On the court, things aren’t much better,Durant’s Houston Rockets – picked by two of four Guardian contributors to win the title this season – had a bright start but have fallen off in the last few months,The Rockets are on course for the playoffs, but any of the million NBA podcasts out there will tell you right now that they’re not a title contender,That’s despite the fact that Durant has mostly played brilliantly,The day after the pixelstorm over his alleged burner account, he scored 35 points.
Rockets head coach Ime Udoka plays his starters for almost the entire game – Durant, who is the oldest player in the rotation, has logged more minutes this season than all but two players in the league.When asked about his playing burden, the 37-year-old sounded more than happy with his responsibilities.“That’s what I get paid to do,” he said.And that gets to the heart of what is intriguing about Durant.While his love for basketball is more evident and pure than most players’ – he’s the kind of guy you worry for in retirement – he’s struggled with elements of his career peripheral to the game.
In 2016, he left his longtime team, the Thunder, for the already-stacked Warriors, and the move came right after Golden State had beaten Oklahoma City in the playoffs.The move is as infamous as any of Durant’s on-court heroics are famous, and it essentially ruined the balance of power in the league for three seasons, until Durant departed again, for the Brooklyn Nets.There was a charitable interpretation of Durant’s decision to join Golden State – simply that he took a better job, as Barry Petchesky argued on Deadspin in 2016 – that almost nobody bought into.“Everyone criticizing Durant for joining a dominant team would leap at the opportunity to do so in their own work life,” Petchesky wrote.“But athletes? I guess they owe you something.
” You could apply the same logic to the burner scandal.Bad if true, for sure, but surely most of us crucifying Durant have also talked shit about our co-workers.NBA fans demand that players win a championship to validate their greatness; you wonder how different the discourse around Luka Dončić this season would look if he had a title or two under his belt.Despite Durant winning the NBA finals with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018, nabbing the Finals MVP both years, the work he did to earn those championships is generally regarded less highly than … well, just about any other star player’s contributions to a title-winning team.That’s not completely unfair, given that Durant joined the Warriors when they were fresh off a historically excellent 73-9 season.
Still, finally landing the white whale only to be told you used the wrong weapon to do so will make a guy bitter.And giving yourself the best shot you can at a championship is understandable considering how much of it can come down to luck.Durant knows that himself: in 2021, he appeared to hit a game-winning three-pointer in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Milwaukee Bucks.It turned out he had his foot on the line.The Bucks won and went on to lift the Larry O’Brien trophy.
Durant is honest about his bitterness, sometimes to a fault.A significant portion of Zach Baron’s 2017 GQ profile of Durant depicts the superstar’s anguish during the fallout of dissing his former Thunder teammates – “KD couldn’t win with those cats” – from his main social media account.The tone of getoffmydickerson’s posts is so consistent with things Durant has said before that it’s almost irrelevant to his reputation whether he said these things.Anyone who knew his history might have been jolted by the content of some of the messages from his alleged burner account, but they wouldn’t have been surprised that the account existed.You get the sense that Durant wishes he could play basketball in a total vacuum sometimes, without media or narratives or maybe even fans.
It’s for that reason that he’s the league’s most relatable superstar.That every NBA player doesn’t occasionally crack emotionally under the pressure of absurd, personal criticism that follows them online every day is a marvel.Fans say anything they want about players on social media, then remark at how absurd it is that those players seem to care about what other people say about them.A player with burner accounts, who lurks on Reddit, and who can’t tune out the noise? That seems like an entirely natural consequence of fame in the social media age.One could look at Durant’s career and say that it hasn’t come together the way it was supposed to, with the phenomenal fortune in Golden State and disappointment everywhere else.
(By our absurd championship-high expectations, of course.) I’d argue fans are lucky it happened this way.Such great players’ careers are rarely so honest in showing how hard it is to fulfil expectations.
European stock markets rally after report of ‘secret outreach’ by Iran to try to end war
European stock markets have rallied on a report claiming Iran is engaging in a “secret outreach” to end the war in the Middle East, after several days of heavy losses on indices around the world.The New York Times reported that a day after the attacks began, operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence indirectly contacted the CIA with an offer to discuss terms for ending the conflict.Officials briefed on the backchanneling are, however, sceptical – at least in the short-term – that either the Trump administration or Iran is really ready for an off-ramp, the report said. There are also questions over whether any Iranian officials could negotiate a ceasefire agreement, as Israeli strikes have taken out many senior figures.The report helped push up the UK’s FTSE 100 share index by nearly 70 points, or 0
Small investors turn on James Watt after BrewDog co-founder admits ‘many mistakes’
The co-founder of BrewDog, James Watt, met with short shrift from small investors who have been left empty-handed by the company’s sale for just £33m, after he admitted to “many mistakes”.Watt issued a mea culpa via the professional social networking site LinkedIn, a platform he has regularly used to espouse political views, including complaints about the level of tax he is asked to pay.The multimillionaire and self-styled punk apologised to more than 200,000 “equity punks”, who invested £75m in the business through multiple crowdfunding rounds but received nothing from its sale to the US cannabis and drinks company Tilray Brands.They lost out partly owing to the terms of an earlier 22% investment by the private equity group TSG, which involved Watt and his co-founder Martin Dickie cashing out to the tune of £100m but left crowdfunding investors with little chance of a return.Watt also said he was “heartbroken” for the 484 staff who lost their jobs in the deal, after Tilray opted to buy only 11 of BrewDog’s bars, leaving 38 having to close their doors
X to ban users from earning revenue if they post unlabelled AI-generated war videos
Elon Musk’s X will ban users from making money on the platform if they repeatedly post unlabelled AI-generated war videos, after social media feeds were flooded with fake battle scenes from the Iran conflict.The social media platform, which has about half a billion monthly active users, will suspend people from earning revenue from posts for 90 days if they put up AI-generated videos of an armed conflict without adding a disclosure that it was made with AI. A second infraction wouldlead to a permanent ban, it said on Tuesday night, after the first days of the conflict in Iran were marked by a torrent of bogus online footage.Timelines on X, as well as Instagram and Facebook, which are run by Meta, have carried numerous faked battle scenes, including Iranian rockets pursuing and shooting down a US jet – which was viewed 70m times, according to checks by BBC Verify – and another clip that used AI to replace smoke rising from the site of a real missile strike with a fake fireball several times bigger.Users can make hundreds of dollars a month on X as part of the platform’s advertising model if they build substantial followings approaching 100,000 people, which incentivises the production of shocking viral posts
Nvidia and UK Wealth Fund invest in British autonomous driving startup Oxa
Nvidia is investing in the British autonomous driving startup Oxa, alongside backing from the UK’s National Wealth Fund, in a boost to the country’s technology sector.The Oxford-based company, which has developed software for self-driving industrial vehicles, said it had raised $103m (£77m) from investors to focus on commercial solutions for that software, as well as its physical AI and robotics technology, and to push on with its global expansion plans.The fundraising includes $50m from the National Wealth Fund, owned by the Treasury, and backing from the US tech company Nvidia’s venture capital arm, NVentures.Founded in 2014, Oxa now focuses on the automation of repetitive industrial driving tasks, such as the towing and carrying of goods in ports, airports and factories.The latest investor round also includes capital from existing shareholders the London-listed IP Group, which invests in British tech companies, the Australian superannuation (pension) fund Hostplus and BP Ventures, the UK oil company’s arm that backs innovative technologies
Luke Donald to remain Europe’s Ryder Cup captain and go for historic three-peat
Luke Donald will captain Europe’s Ryder Cup team for a third time in a move that will increase pressure on the PGA of America to tie down Tiger Woods to lead the US at Adare Manor next September. Woods, who is the first choice to succeed Keegan Bradley, has been publicly vague on his captaincy status.The announcement on Donald’s captaincy, which was made on Wednesday afternoon, has enhanced Europe’s sense of continuity and togetherness with the US picture uncertain. Donald has been widely lauded for his approach in Rome and New York, where Europe won back-to-back Ryder Cups. After a dramatic success at Bethpage last year, it was apparent players wanted the Englishman to remain in office
The Spin | Going for gold? Why China’s female cricketers may benefit from Olympic aim
The Cambridge wind had a February chill, and the trees at Fenner’s were still without any spring decoration, but the old bleachers to the side and the pavilion, largely unchanged since the 1980s, were reminders of a new season just a turn of the calendar away.Fenner’s cricket ground sits next door to Hughes Hall, where the Cricket Research Network held their third annual conference last week. The organisation, headed by Raf Nicholson, sometimes of this parish, is a place for cricket academics to exchange ideas, and the conference a chance for rest of us to put an ear to the door of data and detail.Of the many fascinating presentations, the most eye-popping, at least to someone untutored in Chinese sport, was from Max He, who had come all the way from Xi’an Jiaotong University in Shaanxi province, in the north-west of China.He told of a world turned upside down, where cricket is seen as a female sport and one that absorbs not only the resources, but also the glory and the story-telling – both anecdotally and officially
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