Over 15 years ago, Kevin Durant logged into Twitter and sent his first tweet. From that point on, he was hooked. He fired off 39 tweets over the next 24 hours. Eleven days into his social media awakening, he declared that “Twitter is better than goin to da club.”
So much has changed over those past 15 years for all of us. Genuine interactions between players and fans on the platform now known as X are far less common. Most of the accounts that Durant interacted with have since been deleted, including the first one he ever replied to. Below his first tweet are several jibberish NFT replies, serving as evidence of what the site has devolved into.
@itsmechaneliman yep finally….it seems like im very late though
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) April 28, 2009
Despite all of the drastic changes that have taken place to the platform, one thing has stayed the same: Durant is still on there, and he’s still tweeting like it’s 2009.
He hops into the replies of strangers. He checks the app enough to find tweets he’s not tagged in. And he’s an active part of what’s left of the NBA Twitter community. He’s sent more tweets (25,753) than he’s had shot attempts (20,911) since making an account on the site.
Why is Durant still holding strong on Twitter when so many are fleeing? I went through all of his tweets on X over the span of two months to try and find an answer.
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What I learned from two months of Kevin Durant tweets
In the last two months, Durant has worn plenty of hats. He’s been a philosopher, a comedian, an uplifter and, most of all, an instigator.
“I be trollin 100% of the time, don’t take me serious please,” he warned in November.
Durant can be legitimately hilarious on X. He’s come up with lines that would never pass the PR filter of most players. (His peak came in 2011 when he sent his legendary “Scarlett johanneson I will drink ur bath water” and “Erykah badu thicker than a kindergarten pencil” tweets.)
While he’s toned it in town at age 36, he’s still quick with the comebacks. Take his response to a Nets fan account that rejoiced at how many draft picks the team got after eventually trading him.
U welcome
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) December 11, 2024
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Like many of us addicts, Durant likes to tweet first thing in the morning. Twenty of the 30 tweets that Durant sent over the past month came between 6 and 9 a.m. Phoenix time.
A handful of his tweets are messages of positivity. Several are promotional. By far, the majority of his tweets are meant to stir the pot.
Offer Durant praise, and he’ll probably ignore you. One fan asked why he rarely replied to compliments.
“Too much love will cripple u,” Durant warned.
You’re much more likely to receive a response from Durant if you tweet something dumb. His best dunks this season may have come off the court.
“Sometimes I wake up and look at @TheNBACentel comments just to truly see how many dummies come online thinking that they have high iq. Good morning,” Durant tweeted one early morning before Suns training camp.
Sometimes I wake up and look at @TheNBACentel comments just to truly see how many dummies come online thinking that they have high iq. Good morning
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) October 14, 2024
Long-time followers of Durant may have noticed that he’s shown renewed vigor with his tweets this season. His inspiration came from three-time Olympian Simone Biles, as he told The Athletic’s Sam Amick over the Summer Olympics.
“For her to continue to come out and showcase the brilliance every day, and also let people know that they sound crazy talking against her? To be able to do both is inspiring,” Durant told Amick. “So yeah, she’s inspired me to keep tweeting and keep doing what I do on the court too.”
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Durant doesn’t take the app too seriously, but one thing did come up over and over again as I studied his tweets: It still genuinely bothers him when people make things up about him. (“U can’t keep lyin like this on the internet,” he responded to one fan.)
Legacy talk seems to be one of Durant’s biggest pet peeves. He has joked about the constant discourse on X, praising a media member’s legacy for emptying the dishwasher or deducting legacy points from a fan for drinking too much coffee. But he does have a desire to correct his record.
In his younger days, he relied on fake accounts to get some of his harshest truth bombs off. He admitted to still using burner accounts as recently as 2020.
Today, Durant seems to have fewer reservations about going after the haters on his main account. He has a special ire for the gamblers who point the finger at him for their losses.
“Stop blaming me for losing money because you have a gambling problem,” Durant tweeted at the start of the season.
“GO GET A JOB!!! For the love of god,” KD advised another losing bettor.
No, I tell u to stop complaining about this life that youve committed to. When u lose, there’s finger pointing. When u win, there’s gloating about how smart you are about seeing the future. No gratitude to the service workers like myself. I’m sick of it https://t.co/c3OUaOSQF5
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) November 17, 2024
Given all the hate Durant has to look at on the app, it may seem strange that he keeps using it. But he does get something out of it. He seems to enjoy getting fired up, as he told one user back in 2021.
“There’s No relax champ. No relax when I’m on Twitter. I’m on 10 until the second I close the app. You relax!!”
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The NBA is a long season. Many of the great ones have found motivation by focusing on slights. Michael Jordan didn’t have the benefit of social media during his day. Instead, he made up stories of opponents trash-talking him to fire himself up. Durant simply needs to press a few buttons on his phone to get the same effect.
Durant also gets something else out of Twitter. After going through hundreds of his tweets, my best guess as to why he’s one of the few players who remain active is that while most athletes use the app these days as a valuable tool to brand themselves, he does the opposite. It’s one of the few public spaces where he can be his authentic self.
“Its why I still have twitter,” he’s tweeted. “They want me to act professional on the internet. No, I won’t lol.”
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