Peyton Manning knew how to crack jokes back in his playing days, and he was still a menace after. He absolutely destroyed Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook once.
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Manning retired a two time Super Bowl champion, four time MVP, and was named to the Pro Bowl a record 14 times. Before retiring Manning held several passing records (which Brady eventually surpassed), and his 2013 season goes down as perhaps the greatest season by any quarterback ever.
That year, he threw for an NFL record 5,477 yards and an NFL record 55 touchdowns. Nobody has come close to touching those numbers. Manning is still heavily involved in the NFL, serving as a co-host to perhaps the most entertaining broadcast, the Manningcast, with his brother Eli Manning.
After his career, Manning hosted the ESPY’s in 2017, and there he made a classic joke that’s still talked about to this day, angering two NBA superstars in one go.
Peyton Manning destroyed Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook
Back in 2017, the NBA’s atmosphere was still shaken by Kevin Durant’s free agency move. After the 2015-16 season, Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors in a league altering move that’s still discussed today.
The Warriors won a record 73 games the last year and had bested Durant’s Thunder in the Conference Finals to get to the Finals (where they blew a 3-1 lead but that’s not relevant). Conversations around Durant were not positive at the time.
As everyone predicted Durant and the Warriors destroyed everyone in their way to win a title in their first year together, and KD got his first ring. However, everyone claimed he had taken the easy way out, and memes were flying around about Durant’s weak move.
His split with his former co-star Russell Westbrook had been documented as well as the two didn’t appear to be on good terms. They went head to head in games against each other, literally, showing that there was bad blood over Durant’s move.
Now that the context has been set up, you can see why a joke about either of these stars, especially both of them together, may not fly over so well. However, Peyton Manning being Peyton Manning didn’t care. He went straight for the killshot.
That’s a ruthless burn, and KD and Westbrook’s reactions should be enough to tell you how they felt about that one. It was definitely a sensitive topic at the time, and Manning simply didn’t care.
