BEVO BEAT Men's Basketball

Kevin Durant is coming back, while LeBron yelled at Tristan Thompson and feels bad about it

Posted April 3rd, 2017

Joe Harrington American-Statesman Staff

jharrington@statesman.com

Injured Golden State Warriors All-Star, and Longhorn legend, Kevin Durant could return to the lineup as early as Saturday according to reports on Monday and ease the nerves of Bay Area basketball fans who thought the former MVP would miss playoff games.

Durant sprained his knee earlier this year and has spent the last several weeks recuperating. Durant was averaging 25.3 points, 4.8 assists and 8.2 rebounds before being hurt.

More on Durant and Texas

Durant met with podcast extraordinaire Bill Simmons last week to discuss the season, and was asked about his recruitment to Texas. Durant, who recently celebrated his 10-year McDonald’s All-American game appearance, talked about what could have been.

The forward, originally from the Baltimore area, told Simmons he was convinced he would be playing college basketball for the North Carolina Tarheels following a visit to Chapel Hill. North Carolina beat Duke on a last second shot in 2005 (Durant was a junior year in high school at the time), and Durant was in attendance on a recruiting trip. The experience stuck with him. Luckily for the Longhorns, Durant had promised Texas assistant coach Russell Springman he would visit Austin.

Durant followed through and said he felt a connection to Texas as soon as he stepped on campus and had no regrets on the decision.

Listen here (Texas talk is in the last 20 minutes of the podcast):

 

LeBron James yells at Tristan Thompson

For those who follow the Longhorns in the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers have not been playing very good defense of late. The defending NBA champions have lost its grasp on the NBA Eastern Conference’s top playoff seed, and frustration is starting to set in.

One of the big reasons the Cavs are NBA defending champions at all is Tristan Thompson. The former Longhorn’s defense and rebounding in the 2016 NBA Finals helped keep the Golden State Warriors at bay. On Sunday, that didn’t matter to the world’s best basketball player. James got upset with Thompson and let him know about it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QsLtm6NZI8

Later, James apologized about the incident. 

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