Portland’s McCollum calls Durant’s move ‘soft,’ prompting Twitter fight, NBA rivalry
Just a guess here, but ESPN and TNT are probably going to feature a whole lot of Portland vs. Golden State NBA games this season.
That’s after Portland star C.J. McCollum got into a war of words with Golden State’s Kevin Durant this week. Area fans may remember McCollum for scoring 30 points against Duke in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and leading No. 15 seeded Lehigh to an improbable first-round upset of the No. 2 seeded Blue Devils in 2012.
But back to this week.
It all started after Durant was a guest on McCollum’s podcast earlier this month. McCollum has been critical of Durant’s decision to leave Oklahoma City to join the Warriors, creating a historically great team. Golden State has won back-to-back NBA championships since Durant made the move, and Durant has twice been named MVP of The Finals.
On the podcast, the two discussed Durant’s signing as well as Golden State recently adding NBA All-Star Boogie Cousins to the roster. At one point, Durant took a little shot at the host. With a laugh, he told McCollum that Portland — which was swept by Golden State in the 2017 playoffs — was not going to win a championship.
But, later, on social media, the two continued their conversation, and it wasn’t as lighthearted.
First, here is the podcast.
Afterward, a BarStool sports host asked McCollum about the show. McCollum replied that Durant’s move to the Warriors was “soft” and Durant got into his feelings.
A Sirius radio host chimed in to agree with McCollum about Durant’s switch to Golden State. This is obviously a sore subject for the Warriors superstar. Durant apologized last year for creating burner Twitter accounts to defend his name.
Finally, McCollum tried to put an end to all of this by tweeting there was no feud with Durant.
He said he was done speaking about the Warriors, calling it childish to do so, but he left a little side-eye barb for Durant, who tried to call McCollum a “snake in the grass” in his own tweet earlier.
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This story was originally published July 26, 2018 at 7:37 PM.