Kevin Durant on OKC Thunder’s 2025 title: ‘Bout time they win one’

The 2025-26 NBA regular season will begin on Oct. 21. As part of the night, the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder will host the Houston Rockets, who acquired star forward Kevin Durant in a trade earlier in the offseason.

Durant will be playing in Oklahoma City on banner night years after he put together a legendary stint with the franchise but failed to help the team to a title. One X user asked him about how he will feel watching the Thunder hang a banner in the rafters on opening night, and he trolled OKC with his response.

He did specify that he was just talking a little smack.

While Durant never reached the NBA’s mountaintop while playing for the Thunder, he got very close to winning a championship with the team. He helped Oklahoma City reach the championship series back in the 2012 NBA Playoffs, and the Thunder even had a 1-0 series lead against the Miami Heat in the NBA Finals at one point before losing in five games.

Plenty of fans of the Thunder still seem to have lukewarm feelings for Durant, even after all he accomplished with the team, because of the manner in which he departed the squad. Durant last played for the Thunder in the 2016 NBA Playoffs, when Oklahoma City lost to the Golden State Warriors in seven games in the Western Conference Finals after holding a 3-1 series lead.

Instead of sticking around with the Thunder and finishing the job after the team got so close to another Finals appearance, Durant decided to sign with a Warriors team that had just knocked his Thunder out of the playoffs in free agency that summer. The Warriors then dominated the league with Durant in the fold.

Maybe fans of the Thunder would get a little added closure from Durant’s decision to depart the team all those years ago should Oklahoma City beat his Rockets decisively to kick off its title defense in the upcoming season.