With the NBA's arduous regular season finally coming to a close, something we've seen just once in the past five years is slated to occur — someone other than LeBron James taking home NBA MVP honors.
LeBron has won four of the past five MVPs, with only Derrick Rose's remarkable 2010-11 season interrupting a LeBron five-peat. And it looks as though James will be thwarted from his own personal MV3Peat once again, as the majority of folks figure Kevin Durant will win his first MVP.
So with Durant finishing off yet another ridiculously awesome season that is bound to give him the most coveted individual hardware in the game, it got me thinking … who is it more painful for to see Durant ascend to historic, MVP levels, Portland Trail Blazers fans or Seattle Supersonics (RIP) fans?
Think about it. If you're a Portland fan, seeing Kevin Durant tear the league apart and somehow continue to get better hurts twice as bad. Not only does it remind Blazers fans that their team took the oft-injured (and once again injured) Greg Oden over Durant, but watching everything KD does reminds them of when Portland passed over Michael Jordan in order to take Sam Bowie. That's two once-in-a-generation players slipping right through their grasps in favor of 7-footers who are nothing more than footnotes. That can't feel good.
As for Sonics fans — it hurts doubly for them too. Durant was all theirs for one season, taking home Rookie of the Year. And then he was taken from them just like that — along with the entire team. All they got was a little taste before they were left with absolutely nothing, and Seattle never did get to witness firsthand KD revolutionizing the game as essentially a near 7-foot shooting guard. His rookie year, he struggled. Now, he never seems to struggle.
So what do you think? Who hurts more watching Kevin Durant ascend to the MVP and the unquestioned second best player in the NBA, Portland fans or Seattle fans?
Think it over as you check out the links …
Bubba and Jordan at Augusta - Grantland
Escape from Cuba: Yasiel Puig's Untold Journey to the Dodgers - Los Angeles Magazine
Everything You Don’t Know About Tipping - Wait But Why
A Team, A Forum, Two Futures, and Giannis Antetokounmpo: The Story of Save Our Bucks - The Classical
Introducing a Revolutionary New NBA Stat: True Loathing Rating - Grantland
Footlocker Drops "No Rings" Spot - Hugging Harold Reynolds
CHART: LeBron James And Kevin Durant Have Had Remarkably Similar Careers - Business Insider
Consider The Blue Devil - The Classical
The Finnish Flash - Steven Lebron
Michael Carter-Williams is your Rookie of the Year and fie on anyone who tries to tell me otherwise - The700Level
Michael Rapaport on His Knicks Film at Tribeca and Why Spike Lee Is Wrong About Brooklyn - New York Magazine
