When former MVP Kevin Durant skipped town to form a superteam with Golden State, Oklahoma City Thunder fans were pissed. Like, "hey, let's exercise our Second Amendment rights and shoot automatic machine guns at this guy's jersey till it explodes"-type of pissed. While the controversial move went down on July Fourth, we only recently became aware that the clown prince of culinary quests, Guy Fieri, might have played a role in Durant's defection. And, by proxy, making the rooting lives of millions of small-town OKC fans pretty sad.
In a recent interview with First We Feast, Fieri (an admitted Warriors fan) claimed that he was prodding Durant's agent, doing his best to aggressively sway the four-time scoring champ to the Bay Area: "You can ask his agent, I said it to him during the Playoffs. I even have the text. I said, 'It's coming up, I want him, you gotta bring him.' And he was laughing—yeah, yeah, yeah—and he blew me off. [Then later on] I was away from my cell phone, out on the boat, and I was able to get a signal. In came a note from my buddy: 'KD GS' and I went arghhhhhh! I went and woke up the kids."
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Let's take a step back here. On the one hand, it seemed like Durant had a big change of heart over the past few months and pulled a fast one on his team by strapping up with one of its biggest rivals. On the other hand, why the fuck would Durant care what Guy Fieri thinks? On the other, other hand, he does trust an agent that is apparently friends with Fieri, so we can question his entire decision-making ability -- making this whole scheme a little more likely. I mean, it must be admitted that Fieri has a weird, bewildering influence over people. He did once inadvertently give the shocker to potentially millions of unassuming Food Network fans. So who knows what to think.
Only time will tell if Fieri was really pulling the strings of the NBA's finest -- it's a question I'm sure future historians will agonize over. Right now, we are left with a mystery as murky as a vat of Donkey Sauce.
Stay strong, OKC. After all, isn't it better to have lived and lost Durant than to have Guy Fieri wearing your jersey at all?
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