Is Kevin Duranttrying to get some of the people out there to hate him even more than they already do?! If so, he’s been doing a great job over the course of the last few days.
It all started back on Thursday night when, seemingly out of the blue, KD decided that he was going to respond to a few "fans" on Twitter. He took a look at his mentions on the social media site and started letting off more shots than he took in all five games of the 2017 NBA Finals combined. Here’s a sampling of some of the tweets KD responded to:
That in and of itself would have gotten KD’s point across—that he’s sick and tired of seeing people taking aim at him online. But he didn’t stop there. On Sunday night, while he was sitting on a flight, KD sent out this tweet to congratulate WNBA star Diana Taurasi on becoming the leading scorer in the league’s history:
And while that tweet wouldn’t have sparked much of a response if anyone else had sent it, it rubbed a lot of KD haters the wrong way for whatever reason. So they started sending shots in KD’s direction, and once again, he decided to clap back. And this time, he came twice as hard as he did on Thursday night. It got so crazy that he was involved in this bizarre back-and-forth with a Thunder fan:
He also engaged in wars of words that looked like this:
And this:
And this:
Pretty nuts, right? But over the last eight years or so—he first signed up for Twitter in April 2009—KD has actually become accustomed to clapping back at people online. He doesn’t do it all that much anymore, but he’s no stranger to sounding off on his critics on Twitter, even though he’s seen first-hand just how much controversy he can cause in 140 characters or less.
One of the first examples of this came back in September 2012 when KD got wind of the fact that Skip Bayless had sent out a tweet about how LeBron James "owns" him.
KD obviously wasn’t thrilled to hear Bayless—who has been a thorn in KD’s side for a long time now—say that, so he took to Twitter to clap back at him and to set the record straight. In a since-deleted tweet, KD wrote, "@RealSkipBayless u brainwashing these people out here, they think since you on espn you know what u talkin bout…please, nobody owns me."
That tweet got a lot of coverage online—including right here on Complex.com—and it set the bar pretty high as far as clapbacks are concerned. But since then, KD has continued to deliver quality comebacks anytime he has felt cornered on Twitter.
In July 2014, Twitter user @VH1PNUT tried to put KD on blast by bringing up a topic that a lot of trolls turn to when it comes to throwing shots at KD—his hair. P-Nut asked KD if his barber at the time was blind, which prompted KD to throw back some shade of his own:
KD also made headlines a few months later in October 2014 after Twitter user @TLinds13 trolled KD by writing, "@KDTrey5 bet you wish you could delete all these moments you choke in the playoffs from your memory like you can delete a tweet." KD’s response? Well, let’s just say that most people were surprised when he didn’t get fined by the NBA for going this route:
The shade-throwing continued in February 2015 when KD ripped NBA writer Chris Palmer for taking a shot at his then-teammate Nick Collison. After Collison inked a contract extension with the Thunder, Palmer sent this out:
It led KD to send this to the former ESPN reporter:
That same month, KD also showed that he can clapback on Instagram just as effectively as he does on Twitter. After IG user @ericfreddyson suggested that Russell Westbrook was a better player than him, KD struck back with this:
KD was also not here for the story that one of his former high school opponents Nate Flowers tried to tell in March 2015. The two have actually exchanged a number of tweets over the years, but the interaction between the two that made the most headlines involved Flowers trying to tell his Twitter followers about the time he held KD in check on the court. KD wasn’t having it:
And even though KD has been in the NBA for 10 years now and is a certified superstar at this point, he’s still not above going at it with fans who try to disrespect him. He proved that over the last few days, and he also proved it back in November when he put the turkey legs down on Thanksgiving to clap back at not one, but two different haters who tried to ruin his holiday. He saw Twitter user @brandizz3l send this:
And KD responded with this:
KD also sent this:
And got hit with this:
Which prompted this:
The moral of the story here is that KD does check his mentions, and he will clap back on you if he sees something that he doesn’t like. So watch what you say. Or don't. Either way, it doesn’t look like KD is going to hold back on his haters, regardless of the NBA title he has under his belt now.
