Kevin Durant Addresses Free Agency Rumors

Kevin Durant is finally returning to the basketball court this NBA season but as everyone knows, his return to active duty will most likely be clouded with his plans in 2016.

Durant is one of the high profile names expected to be hotly-pursued in the next offseason and while he has tried to discourage everyone by telling them not to believe in any rumors coming out regarding his future NBA plans, it will not stop critics and writers from speculating.

Rumors are expected to fly out and if Durant wants everyone to believe him, he may do well to simply shrug off rumors and leave the speculations to the fans and writers. Reacting to such could mean something and further add fuel to the fire.

Just a couple of days ago, Stephen A. Smith did seem to make a seemingly harmless pitch that should KD leave the Thunder, sources tell him that the former NBA MVP would prefer the Los Angeles Lakers as a landing spot over two closely linked teams which are located in South Beach (Miami Heat) or Washington D.C. (Washington Wizards).

And of course other bloggers, fans and writers picked up on that, doing their own piece and bunch of speculations which have now made it a pretty interesting topic.

Apparently such has reached Durant and the OKC star forward has opted to respond to the seemingly irritating issue. He responded to Anthony Slater via The Oklahoman.

"I don't talk to Stephen A Smith at all. Nobody in my family, my friends, they don't talk to Stephen A Smith. So he's lying."

"If you ask me a question, I'll talk about them. But like I said before, I have people who I talk to about everything and I know for a fact they didn't talk to him, so he's making up stories."

It didn’t take long for Smith to respond to Durant’s piece on the matter, highlighting the fact the he never said he spoke to Durant or his family.

Apparently the keyword there is "sources", which seems to be pretty common when you look at reporters who opt not to divulge actual names due to privacy concerns.

Smith’s whole reply to the issue can be found here.

So did Durant overreact? Shouldn’t he be used to these things?

Considering he is a high profile player, KD is bound to get more attention. Whether he reacts or responds to them is his choice. But the thing is, the more he reacts, the more he is building on the issue, so perhaps it would be best to ignore and just focus on the coming season to let the rumors die down.