Thank you. For everything. Finals MVPs and championships aren't even the beginning of the list of things I'm grateful to you for.
For 3 magical years, you took the brunt of the NBA/sports media and the brunt of the social media and the brunt of half the Dubs fanbase and the brunt of the rest of the entire NBA fanbase that endlessly attacked you and I can't even begin to imagine how emotionally and psychologically hard that must have been. The lack of respect for one of the greatest players to put that uniform on and the fact that you took all that abuse and put your career on the line to help Golden State win and win and win again.
How hard it must have been to stay positive, stay focused and always keep the team first on and off the court.
I don't think any other super star player in the entire league could have made Golden State as fluid and potent and focused and completely and totally feared as you did. All other top-tier players would have only made Golden State worse because of ego.
You suffered a raw deal from worthless fans who did not appreciate you.
In Golden State, you saw the bond those guys had, how much they loved playing together, and how much they loved the game. They brought in a lot of great people to run the organization. However, they'd already won a title and gone through a lot together. You were constantly pitted against the championship core. It was never the Warriors, it was KD and the Warriors.
I also believe that although you were undoubtedly the best player on the Golden State Warriors, you knew deep down the team would never be your team.
KD & Steph on the same floor was a level of efficiency and potency and technical skill perfection and sublime grace and supreme creativity this game had not seen since the Jordan era. It will be missed by all involved, all who watched whether or not they admit it, but no one will miss it more than KD.
He will never replicate the level of basketball mastery he achieved in Golden State. He will never play with teammates of this caliber with this high of an IQ. He was like an artist in his prime. These fleeting moments don't last, but it's extremely sad (heart ripped to shreds....) when they end prematurely. KD and Steph looked like and played like a synthesis of Olympic figure skaters and elite Russia-school ballet dancers and wild gazelles, so many of the technical/mechanical movements and plays-designs KD and Steph made were straight out of the figure skating and ballet playbooks done with Gold Medal excellence. Dumb worthless NBA "fans" and the entire realm of sports media and social media etc failed to comprehend the sheer unparalleled choreographed routines-of-beauty these two wild gazelle figure skater dancers performed, shift after shift after shift, game after game after game, year after year after year.
This last season we all clearly saw that you were suffering an existential crisis and we knew and you knew that the third year was the final year. We knew you selflessly agreed to remain for one more season to try for a rare, historic, three-peat championship for a team you still clearly did not feel a part of playing a fast-paced game system that failed to integrate your even-paced/midrange/isolation-style of play for a state you clearly did not feel at home in. Golden State, my team, failed you in many ways, and I will be forever sorry for that. Golden State is also the team that taught you 1) championships are a mere fleeting moment of glory that amount to nothing compared to friendship and family and the life you live off the court and 2) it's not the team that makes the player nor the player that makes the team, it's the player who plays the game like nobody else and builds the game and team he wants and who has the ultimate freedom to play on his own terms in his own style with whom he wants when he wants where he wants and how he wants with no care about what the media or fans say, it's players like you who go down in the record books as the greatest, it's players like you who come like the wind and touch everything with a bit of golden glory and then like the wind sail on. You must do everything you must do to fulfill yourself, to build the team you want and build the life outside-of-basketball you want. Golden State does not define nor exhaust the possibilities and the meaning of being a great basketball player or a human being, Golden State is/was merely a championship pathway, not a life pathway.
I'm rooting for you every step of the way forever. Come back stronger from the Achilles heal, win for old school Brooklyn, take pride in and enjoy the opportunity of building up an average struggling team, take pride in boosting Brooklyn, lead the least likely of teams to a championship season for yourself and for them, endlessly add to your indescribably crazy legacy. And carry on being the equally indescribably Kierkegaardian and Kafkian human being you are.
Please New York and Brooklyn fans take care of him, you're g-d damned fucking blessed to have him.
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