The Thunder Front Office Had The Most Miserable Of Accommodations When Finding Out About Kevin Durant

Uproxx-  Now, a feature from ESPN’s Royce Young throws that into stark contrast with the Thunder’s attempt to keep Durant in the fold.

It started with a dinner hosted by Russell Westbrook and Nick Collison — along with Durant, the “founding fathers” of the franchise, as GM Sam Presti put it — but it finished up in exactly the kind of place an awkward divorce often does: A cheap hotel on Long Island.

[Thunder executives] didn’t have anywhere to stay, and with the Fourth of July weekend a hectic time in the Hamptons, lodging was hard to come by. So the Thunder holed up at a Holiday Inn Express, located one mile away from Durant’s compound, and waited.

There were only six rooms available for nine people, so they shared. Clay Bennett, a multimillion-dollar owner, in a Holiday Inn Express, sharing a bed. Nothing was open, so they settled on a T.G.I. Friday’s for a late dinner.

And then they waited for the inevitable.


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You remember that show 'Cheaters' where suspicious lovers would enlist the help of "private investigators" that would stalk out their significant others to find out if they were being unfaithful only to report the findings back to them as they were held up in a cheap motel room? This reminds me of the wealthy man's version of that. A bunch of millionaires slumming it in a 'Holiday Inn Express' in Long Island? Bunking up with each other on 4th of July weekend while awaiting what was almost certain to be bad news? Pushing off the morning after as long as possible by grabbing a late night meal at a restaurant they haven't seen the inside of since their bank account reached 8 digits? Might sound like a run-of-the-mill weekend with the boys to us regular folk, but for the most elevated of the upper class this was basically a white trash funeral. Good thing you can't fully open the windows at mediocre hotels, or their would have been 9 front office members fighting to fall to their death after learning that their organization just took a knockout punch that it may never recover from. 

Ever taken a vacation to watch your favorite team play in another city only to see them lose an important game in excruciating fashion? Well, multiply the disappointment hangover you experience when you wake up the next morning beside your snoring friend with an aching back in an uncomfortable bed by every dollar that the Oklahoma City Thunder are worth. That should give you an idea of just how depressing it must have been for them to find out that Kevin Durant didn't just leave, but left to go to the team that just destroyed their hopes and dreams 3 games in a row...while they were half awake in the executive equivalent of a hostel. That's a level of sports induced dejection that I wish on no man - no matter how rich.