{"id":336745,"date":"2025-12-09T08:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T08:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/336745\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T08:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T08:20:15","slug":"stephen-currys-media-bias-unfairly-overshadows-kevin-durants-legacy-says-gilbert-arenas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/336745\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Curry’s Media Bias Unfairly Overshadows Kevin Durant’s Legacy, Says Gilbert Arenas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Curry<\/a> would arguably not have two of his four NBA championship rings without Kevin Durant<\/a>. Yet, when the media talks about Durant\u2019s legacy, there\u2019s always an asterisk associated with him needing to join a superteam to win his championships. Meanwhile, Curry gets full credit for all his championships.<\/p>\n

Gilbert Arenas<\/a>, the former NBA player, recently spoke<\/a> about this difference in public perception of the two stars during his own show, \u2018Gil\u2019s Arena.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen people talk about Stephen Curry\u2019s legacy and KD\u2019s legacy, it sounds like this. KD\u2019s two championships: aww, he had to superteam up, those two rings, asterisks. Steph Curry, four-time champ. They don\u2019t say two without him, they say all four.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see how unfair that is? Think about it. I called you to come help me, meaning I know you are the difference maker. But I get credit for all four, and they\u2019re questioning your two; that is horrible,\u201d highlighted Arenas.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf KD won his in OKC and had two Finals MVPs, he would\u2019ve already been in the top 10 with his two championships. But if he joined a team, they\u2019re using that against them, even if he\u2019s the best player on that team.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to remember, LeBron James was the best player in Miami; they called him for help,\u201d said Arenas while comparing how James\u2019 joining the Heat<\/a> was no different from what Durant did.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if he won one in Brooklyn, they would\u2019ve already written it, yeah, he\u2019s the man on this team, but he brought in who? A superteam with him,\u201d said Arenas while emphasizing the media\u2019s bias towards Durant.<\/p>\n

Durant won his two NBA championships with the Warriors<\/a> (2017 and 2018) and won the Finals MVP on both those occasions. Over the two appearances in the NBA Finals in 2017 and 2018, Durant averaged 32.3 points, 9.3 rebounds, and 6.3 assists while shooting 45.0% from three-point range. He was undoubtedly the best player on the floor for the Warriors whenever the team needed him the most.<\/p>\n

While most people would think it is the Thunder<\/a> fans who criticize Durant for leaving, the 37-year-old veteran also seems to believe that Warriors fans do not appreciate his contributions.<\/p>\n

According to Durant<\/a>, the Warriors fans are unsettled over the fact that he joined their team and won the two Finals MVP awards over their franchise player, Stephen Curry. The former All-Star, Arenas, is now highlighting how unfair it is for Durant to face permanent criticism for simply wanting to win.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the circumstances for LeBron James<\/a> and Durant are different because the Cavaliers<\/a> hadn\u2019t just lost to the Heat in the playoffs a few weeks before James went to Miami. Meanwhile, Durant joining the Warriors, who had just beaten the Thunder, went against the spirit of true competition that fans love to see.<\/p>\n

When it comes to the Curry and Durant comparison in this debate, the bias is simply, as Durant rightly pointed out, the favoritism for a locally grown franchise player over a superstar who joined the team later. A sad reality is that no matter how good Durant was on the floor, circumstances change public opinion drastically.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Curry would arguably not have two of his four NBA championship rings without Kevin Durant. Yet, when…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-336745","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}