At its best, NBA Twitter is dope. The community is a vibrant gathering of fans sharing their thoughts and opinions about the game. 

You can find clever and funny memes and gifs and first quarter overreactions flooding the timeline night after night during the season. 

It’s not unusual to find some teams joining in the fun when they playfully rib each other. 

Depending on the time of day and the vibe, NBA Twitter epitomizes the essence of the league’s cool.

At NBA Twitter’s worst, it is a cesspool of delusional fans, insane hot takes and perverted miscreants.

These fans pollute the timeline with attacks on each other for a mere difference of opinion. They make up alternate realities devoid of facts for their favorite teams and players. If they’re not doing that, they are talking recklessly in the mentions of players. The antics of NBA Twitter are nothing new to me. It isn’t anything that I’ve never seen before. That all changed about a week ago when I saw parts of Warriors Twitter arguing among themselves about Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and the dynamics of the team.

#TeamKD believes that Warriors fans do not appreciate Durant, his contributions to the team and go out of their way to bash him while #TeamSteph believes that Curry is being disrespected and being treated as an afterthought.

In my opinion, the media narrative and an anti-Curry bias is how we got here. Last season, the media told us that the “Warriors needed Durant”. They also said that something was wrong with Curry. He was having a “down year.” After Durant’s late season injury and a 14-game winning streak when Curry went on a tear, the narrative changed again — this time it was the “Warriors don’t need KD”. Then, it changed again after Durant’s finals performance. Durant was and is seen as the sole reason why the Warriors won while Curry’s near triple double performance was widely ignored and in some instances, derided. To Durant’s credit, he saw what the media was tying to do after the series and he told them to respect Curry and his game.

For the most part, the narratives have been seen by most of the fan base as the media’s way of discrediting Curry and using Durant to do so. That same attitude trickled down to the fans as they regurgitated the same views. “It’s KD’s Team” “Warriors Need KD” and “Steph isn’t even the best player on the team”.

DubNation is a passionate and loyal fan base. And while they have embraced and cheer for Durant, their affinity and loyalty is with Curry, Thompson, and Green in that order. What is seen as Warrior Fans bashing Durant is fans defending their guy. Sadly, they are defending Curry from the Durant fans who are now part of the Warriors fan base.

Warriors Twitter and Dub Nation as a whole is very protective of Curry and rightfully so. Despite winning two MVPs and championships and putting up ridiculous numbers, Curry’s skills and talent as a basketball player are still being called into question. The media and fans from others teams throw around “overrated”, “collaborative talent”, “he’s not the best on his own team” while the only thing that KD has been criticized for was his decision to come to the Bay.

What Durant-only fans who are new to the fan base must understand is that the issue here is with the media and other fans are out here using Durant to discredit Curry, and to a lesser extent the Durant fans who tend to discredit Curry. They’re not hating on Durant for no reason. They don’t hate Durant at all. It’s about feeling as if Curry isn’t getting the proper respect that he deserves as an elite player in this league. And they’ll be damned if they will defend Curry from other Warrior fans.

I get the need of media and fans to compare, contrast, analyze and dissect this team. I get wanting to know who’s the man on the team and how they are able to not only co-exist but to dominate together. So if you’re interested in spoilers here, I’ll entertain you: the gap between Durant and Curry is smaller than what people may realize and Curry is still the leader and driving force of this team.

Last season, they averaged 25.3 (Curry) and 25.1 (Durant) during the regular season. In the playoffs, Curry averaged 28.1 points per game to Durant’s 28.5. 1.7 rebounds separated the two in the playoffs. This year, Curry leads the team in points, steals and is .2 away from leading the team in assists. Stats and data aside, factor in how Curry and Durant play with and off of each other. Both players are averaging 16.5 shots per game and, within those shots, they make the game easier for each other off of the defensive attention that they both command. Both players are dominant and they dominate in different ways

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Source: Los Angeles Times