Kevin Durant Offered High-Profile Political Position to Stay With Thunder
Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin has made an offer to Kevin Durnat she hopes he can't refuse. If the Oklahoma City Thunder basketball star will sign on to stay with the team, she's offering him a position on her cabinet.
The seven-time All-Star has served the last season in his contract with the Thunder, and according to Tulsa World, Fallin proposed the position during a question-and-answer session on Saturday at the Oklahoma Press Association's annual convention.
"If Kevin Durant thinks about leaving, which I hope he doesn't — Oklahoma loves Kevin Durant, and Kevin Durant loves Oklahoma," Fallin said. "But if he'll stay, I'll make him a cabinet person for health and fitness on my cabinet."
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Durant, who becomes an unrestricted free agent on July 1, has previously spoken about his love for Oklahoma City. In a GQ magazine interview published in 2015 the basketball star said there are different standards when it comes to players or teams initiating the decision to part ways with one another.
"When players do stuff that benefits them, they're looked at as unloyal, selfish," Durant said. "But when a team decides to go the other way and cut a player, or not bring him back or not re-sign him, it's what's best for the team, and that's cool. But what we do is frowned upon, you know?"
The forward insists that he has been loyal to the team that he has given his entire nine year career to.
"I could have easily not signed the extension after my rookie contract. I could have not played as hard every night," he insisted. "This is not just a game for us. This is life."
Durant further explained the stakes that he was playing for.
"Like, we live and die and breathe by basketball," he said. "We're away from our families to entertain other people."
"I just don't know who's gonna be competitive, who's not gonna be, you know? That's why I can't really think too far in my mind," he said. "It's something you can't control."
In the same GQ interview, the basketball star spoke about his faith in God, and how Hillsong New York City Pastor Carl Lentz taught him that God is more about love than following a set of rules.
"I felt like I had to follow the Ten Commandments. But we don't live by that no more," the 27-year-old forward told GQ. "We live by the blood of Jesus. That's how I feel."
