Kevin Durant won’t be making a trip to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to celebrate the Warriors’ NBA title with Donald Trump.
The Finals MVP told ESPN.com during “Kevin Durant Day” in his hometown that he’d decline the invitation because “I don’t respect who’s in office right now.”
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“I don’t agree with what he agrees with, so my voice is going to be heard by not doing that,” said Durant, who said it wasn’t an organizational decision. “That’s just me personally, but if I know my guys well enough, they’ll all agree with me.”
A number of Warriors players and coach Steve Kerr have been outspoken critics of Trump since his presidential campaign. From the day they won the title, it’s been questioned if and how many players would show up at what has become a traditional visit to the White House to meet the President.
In July, NBA commissioner Adam Silver said he hoped the team, if invited, took the opportunity. “Regardless of people’s personal, political views, I think that these institutions are bigger than any individual politician, any individual elected official,” Silver said during an interview with Portland Trail Blazers guard C.J. McCollum for The Players’ Tribune. “It concerns me that something like going to the White House after winning a championship, something that has been a great tradition, would become one that is partisan.
“I will say, though, even though I think that teams should make decisions as organizations, I would also respect an individual players’ decision not to go.”
But that was a month ago. In the past week, Trump has found himself under intense criticism for what many believe was an inadequate response to a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va. where three people were killed — two state troopers when their helicopter crashed and one 32-year-old woman when a man allegedly ran his car into a group of counter-protesters.
Durant told ESPN he believes that Trump is “driving” the public rise of white supremacism and racial tensions.
“He’s definitely driving it,” Durant said. “I feel ever since he’s got into office, or since he ran for the presidency, our country has been so divided and it’s not a coincidence. When [Barack] Obama was in office, things were looking up. We had so much hope in our communities where I come from because we had a black president, and that was a first.
“So to see that and to be where we are now, it just felt like we took a turn for the worse, man. It all comes from who is in the administration. It comes from the top. Leadership trickles down to the rest of us. So, you know, if we have someone in office that doesn’t care about all people, then we won’t go anywhere as a country. In my opinion, until we get him out of here, we won’t see any progress.”
Durant isn’t the only Warriors player to speak out against Trump this week. Steph Curry appeared to send a supportive tweet after Under Armour Kevin Plank quit the President’s jobs and manufacturing council and Kerr sent this tweet shortly after Trump expressed hesitation in removing controversial statues:
Andre Iguodala and Curry also expressed reservations in June about going to the White House.
“Somebody asked me about (going to the White House) a couple of months ago, like a hypothetical, if the championship were to happen would I do it and I think I answered ‘I wouldn’t go’. I still feel like that today,” Curry told reporters in June. “But, obviously as a team, we’re going to have a conversation.
