Nevius: Kevin Durant's melancholy search for happiness continues

Kevin Durant’s melancholy search for happiness continues.

The Hamlet of the NBA, Durant has always been among the league leaders in deep sighs and chin stroking.

He’s told an interviewer that he thought winning a championship would make him happy, but it hasn’t. In a revealing GQ interview in 2015, he admitted he worried, “Am I going to be alone forever? Am I gonna have kids?”

Nothing wrong with that. If anything, it is endearing. God forbid an athletic superstar should do a little soul-searching. He can spend the offseason meditating on a mountaintop as long as it doesn’t affect his play for the Warriors.

And that’s the problem. There’s something up with Durant.

In Game 2 of the Clippers series, Durant turned into a statue at times. While Steph Curry spun and twirled at the top of the arc, Durant went to the corner, next to the Clippers’ bench, and stood. You remember the stat line: played 34 minutes, attempted eight shots.

Before Game 3, clearly wanting more engagement from Durant and aware that KD follows all media keenly, Kerr called him “the most skilled basketball player on planet Earth,” and suggested he’d be happy if Durant took 20 or even 30 shots a game.

So, a compliment followed by a green light. How do you respond to that?

Well, if you’re Durant, you contradict your coach and say, “I’m not going to go out there and just shoot 20 or 30 shots. I don’t play that way.”

Now, as it happens, Durant did come out more engaged in Game 3. He took 23 shots, as requested, scored 38 points and was generally terrific.

But there you have it. Sometimes he’s all in, sometimes he’s in the corner.

The flaw with Durant is that he has a head-snapping ability to take offense at the slightest of slights.

His heartfelt 2014 MVP acceptance speech was deservedly praised. His concluding gesture to his mother, “You the real MVP,” became such a viral hit that people began using it as a punchline on social media. Like saying to your partner who emptied the dishwasher, “You the real MVP.”

And that pissed Durant off because he thought people were making a joke out of a personal, emotional moment.

Really? Is that the hill you want to die on?

He’s so touchy that it is easy to trigger a snit fit without meaning to. For example, attempting to get his scorer more involved, Kerr might draw up some plays for him.

In the past, Durant has seen that as patronizing.

“Why are you telling me how to play?’ Durant has said. “I know how to play.”

Whew.

On the other hand, after Game 3, Durant gave a nod to Kerr by saying, “I just think coach drew up more plays for me.” Are he and Kerr talking to each other through the media? Maybe. It’s complicated.

As Kerr said in the recent 60 Minutes interview, “Drawing up the plays is 20 percent of the job. The other 80 percent is being a psychologist.”

The simple reality is that in the NBA, you win or lose because of your superstars. And keeping them happy is job one for coaches. Because there is no greater statement a star can make than to stand in the corner and say, “All right, let’s see you do this without me.”

There’s plenty of precedent for it. Warrior history buffs will recall the 1976 Western Conference Finals, when Warriors MVP Rick Barry got miffed at his teammates for not backing him up. In the second half of Game 7 he stood in the corner and refused to shoot. The Warriors lost.

Both Kobe Bryant and LeBron James have had to answer questions about tanking when unhappy.

Is Durant doing that? Let’s just say in upcoming games, if he stands motionless in the corner, it is not part of the game plan.

We know Durant is going through endless free-agency speculation, which is pointless because no one will know if he is leaving Golden State until after the end of the season.

And frankly, some of the media “insights” border on journalistic malpractice. The idea of taking a screenshot from the 60 Minutes interview, noting that KD was not smiling and then making the leap to say that Durant is “absolutely miserable” with the Warriors (as one website commenter had it) is ridiculous.

(By the way, the guys who cover the team say that 60 Minutes interview was shot months ago, so it might not be the best read on the current situation.)

Durant’s irritation at being studied like a lab project is understandable. It has to be annoying to have people constantly staring at you, reading your body language and deducing what you are thinking.

Durant’s tired of it. Fair enough.

But this is a shot, a chance to do something meaningful and historic. This team could win three rings in a row. Four in five years. Five straight NBA Finals. That’s rarified air. Up there with, and even beyond, the great franchises in history.

And no matter how easy it seems now, these chances don’t come often.

But the Warriors can’t win it without Durant. He’s got to be all in. And to lose this opportunity because of some perceived slight or grievance, would be unforgivable.

Where is Durant’s head now? Hard to say. He’s tough to read. Even if he says he isn’t.

“I’m Kevin Durant,” he said last week. “You know who I am.”

Not really.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius