Kevin Durant Is the Only Athlete Doing the Olympics Right

It’s often said that we will never have another LeBron James, who, at 40 years old, has been dominating the NBA for nearly two decades and shows no sign of slowing down. But we will also never have another Kevin Durant, who, at 35 years old, is one of the world’s most effective scorers and, perhaps more importantly, one of the world’s pettiest and most prolific posters.

On Sunday, Durant led Team USA to victory in their first game against Serbia. (Next, they’ll play South Sudan on Wednesday.) And, on the heels of his magnificent, 23-point performance, he celebrated on Monday by trolling random Twitter users. As a friendly little reminder, the Summer Olympics assemble all the world’s greatest athletes in one place and they only happen once every four years. When these athletes aren’t competing, they’re often participating in an inspiring global exchange, taking in the local cultural attractions, partying, and certainly fucking (a lot!).

But not Kevin.

On Monday afternoon, Durant replied to a Twitter user who called out the NBA for not imposing FIBA rules, “I swear yall just be yappin. What rules u wanna see man?” He went back and forth with this one Twitter user for the better part of the morning—eastern time, that is, so late afternoon in Paris. He accused other Twitter users of not comprehending the rules and basic mechanics of the game or, in other words, knowing only of “Random basketball!! U not comprehending what I’m saying.” In a since-deleted tweet, he told another user arguing with him about basketball, “I hate u lames.” I respect his decision to delete it, but I disagree with this decision—the randos who think they know basketball better than one of the greatest players of all time are, indeed, “lames,” and they deserve to be told as much!

I swear yall just be yappin. What rules u wanna see man?

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) July 29, 2024

I’ve never made secret my love and adoration for Durant’s Twitter addiction, or the fact that it makes him one of the most sincere, earnest, and relatable athletes of our generation. Last summer, he spent an entire Friday night bickering in Twitter Spaces—users were debating who’s a top-five player, and he jumped in to argue with this group of perfect strangers about his legacy. Incredible!

Durant is also the man who inadvertently revealed to the world that he had a burner account by accidentally arguing with another random Twitter user from his main account in 2017—only to completely own up to the incident, and continue to post and post and post for years now, unabashedly arguing with the world from his main account. It’s a frankly inspirational level of honesty.

Twitter is better than goin to da club…

— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) May 9, 2010

Some might argue he should spend his time at the 2024 Olympics being present, “locking in,” expanding his horizons, or whatever. To that, I say: We all saw him play on Sunday—how much more locked in could a human being possibly be??? As for being “present,” Parisians are famously rude and the real world is something of a dumpster fire right now. As Durant himself memorably tweeted nearly 15 years ago, “Twitter is better than goin to da club…”—if he’s having more fun on the internet than partying in the Olympic village, who are any of us to yuck his yum???

The best way to do the Olympics is to be yourself, and like it or not, that’s precisely what Mr. Durant is doing. And for that, as always, I salute him.