“Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan started it!”: Kevin Durant makes a controversial claim about the 80s legends starting a culture of NBA brotherhood

Nets’ star Kevin Durant brings up a controversial claim about Michael Jordan, uses it as a defense for the current NBA culture.

Kevin Durant is one of the best scorers in the league, if not the best. The Slim Reaper has been a dominating force in the NBA ever since his rookie year.  He has constantly wowed everyone with his performances.

KD is a 2x NBA Champion, 2x NBA Finals MVP, a former league MVP, 11x NBA All-Star. His list of accolades does not end here. However, a lot of people would ridicule and claim his championships don’t count as he joined a strong Warriors’ team to win them.

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KD is now in Brooklyn, and is in the race for another ring, alongside his friends James Harden and Kyrie Irving. A lot of former players have been very critical of current players being friends off the court. The older generation players claim they would have never done the same. They don’t get the need for the current ones to do the same.

Kevin Durant bring up Michael Jordan, claims the friend culture was started then

Kevin Durant, in one of the recent episodes of ETCs, defends his generation over the friendship culture. Durant claims it was a practice started by former athletes like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan.

He said, “The Magics, The Birds, The Jordans, they created that brotherhood amongst the league.”

KD feels the “older generation” started it and today’s NBA embraced it 🤝

(via @boardroom) pic.twitter.com/G2ZgBF3zmi

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) March 11, 2021

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Durant does have a strong point there. Off-court friendships in the league started when Magic and Bird did their infamous Converse commercial.

Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley were also very good friends off the court. However, the friendship took an ugly turn when Barkley had a controversial statement about Hornet’s front office on the air.

In my opinion, the friendship off the court, but the rivalry on the court is what makes the current day NBA so interesting to watch. When one watches players like Dame Lillard and Steph Curry being friends off the court, but then go against each other on the court, it makes the game much more interesting.