Kevin Durant opens up on why he didn’t sign with his hometown Wizards

Kevin Durant had a long list of teams to choose from during last summer’s free agency, one of which was his hometown Washington Wizards.

Durant had the chance to have a similar homecoming to what LeBron James experienced in 2014, but the sharpshooter decided to join the Golden State Warriors shortly after they lost the NBA Finals to the Cleveland Cavaliers.



So why not join the Wizards and form a Big Three with John Wall and Bradley Beal, catapulting Washington as the clear contender to Cleveland’s throne in the East? For Durant, it was simply because he didn’t want to play at home.

“I don’t want to open up anything in the past, but I really just didn’t want to play at home,” Durant told the Washington Post. “It was nothing about the fans. Being at home, I was so happy with that part of my life — playing at home, being in front of friends, hanging with friends and family every day. That was a part of my life that has come and gone.

“I was like, I’m trying to build a second part of my life as a man living in a different part of the country, just trying to do different things. I did everything I was supposed to do in the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia area, I felt. Now it’s time to do something new. I didn’t want to come back. That’s just my thought process behind it. It had nothing to do with basketball, the fans, the city.

“It was just like, ‘All right, that part of my life I’ve conquered already. What’s next?’ ”