Kevin Durant told ESPN that he’s been dreaming of bringing the Larry O’Brien Trophy to the White House as an NBA champion since he was a kid. But if President Donald Trump invites the Golden State Warriors star and his teammates to celebrate their 2017 championship, he won’t be in attendance.
Speaking with ESPN’s Chris Haynes, Durant said he’d make his voice heard by not accepting an invitation to visit the president.
“I don’t respect who’s in office right now,” the finals MVP said. “I don’t agree with what he agrees with, so my voice is going to be heard by not doing that.”
Trump has not formally invited the Golden State Warriors to the White House, and Durant suspects his teammates would also not want to go if asked.
“That’s just me personally, but if I know my guys well enough, they’ll all agree with me,” he added.
Durant wouldn’t be the first athlete to publicly denounce the president. When the New England Patriots visited the White House to celebrate their 2017 Super Bowl win, six players said they would not attend for political reasons. In December, a group of Cleveland Cavaliers players, including LeBron James, opted not to stay at a Trump-branded hotel that the team had booked as accommodation while they were in New York playing against the Knicks. Other NBA teams, including the Milwaukee Bucks, Memphis Grizzlies and Dallas Mavericks, said they would not book accommodation at Trump hotels to “avoid any implied association” with the president.
Durant said during his ESPN interview that he believed Trump’s time in office had escalated racial tensions in the U.S.
Trump said after last weekend’s white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that there had been some “very fine people on both sides,” as he defended his response to the violence.
Durant called the events that unfolded after the protest “unfathomable.”
“If we have someone in office that doesn’t care about all people, then we won’t go anywhere as a country,” he said. “In my opinion, until we get him out of here, we won’t see any progress.”
Head over to ESPN to read the interview in its entirety.
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