If you are a sports fan, you have probably heard that Kevin Durant decided to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder, his basketball team for the past nine seasons, to join the Golden State Warriors, the NBA Western Conference Champions and owner of a 73-9 regular season record (an all-time NBA record as well). Durant’s decision has received a lot of negative reactions from many NBA players, retired players, and NBA front office around the league. The reasoning is that Durant is taking a supposedly easy way out to winning a championship. How could a player of Durant’s stature stoop so low as to play for a team that beat his former team in the Western Conference Finals? Why join a team that won 73 games and has a current MVP in Curry and doesn’t need another superstar? Right now, Durant is the villain of the NBA. To me, that’s a pretty mind boggling concept. Ponder upon this for a second.

When’s the last time a NBA superstar left his team to join another team with another superstar?

If you guessed Lebron James, you would be correct.

Now granted, James’ situation is not the same as Durant’s. James left for a team that was a solid Miami Heat team at the time, not a great team like the Golden State 73-9 team, but a solid one. Yet James left the Cleveland Cavaliers, a team that had been in the NBA Finals once during his first tenure, and lost in the Eastern Conference Finals a couple of times, similar to the Oklahoma City Thunder. But what made James’ decision worse was that he left his hometown team in the most egoistic way possible (there was even a ESPN special devoted to his 2010 free agency decision). James didn’t just pick a new team, he dumped his hometown. He didn’t pick a team that needed a great player to take the next step, he picked a team that had two superstars in their prime on the roster (Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh). People were calling James arrogant, immature, and wait for it, "not trying to win a championship the right way" (Durant has heard this one a lot.)

Perceptions have changed on James a LOT over the past six years. He won two championships with the Heat. And those same people who criticized him for going to Miami were now saying that he was finally "an all-time great." James then returns to Cleveland because Cleveland got better players (Kyrie Irving is a fine example) due to their horrific basketball records after James left. In his second year back in Cleveland, the Cavaliers finally win a championship with James leading the charge. Suddenly, James is now the NBA’s golden child instead of the bad boy.

So if you’re Kevin Durant, you gotta be confused by this reaction. The league has already seen one NBA superstar leave a team to win championships with a team that already had great players, so why are people questioning it now when they’ve already seen it? James did it this way, what can’t Durant? Durant didn’t leave the Thunder in the same manner that James did. Durant has been seen as a much humbler basketball player than James has been, yet his character is being questioned now because he wants to play on a great basketball team. You’re not winning a championship the right way if you sign with a great team, so do you have to win a championship with the 76ers to do it the right way? It just seems like the criticism Durant is receiving right now is a little unfair. If we have seen a NBA superstar take this road to the championship before, why are we shocked and disappointed that another superstar is trying to do the same?

Unfortunately for Durant, he is going to deal with this criticism until he wins a championship. He could face criticism even after that. Durant may have to wait for another superstar to do this to stop receiving criticism. If this works out for Durant, that could be very soon.