Kevin Durant Put The Shorthanded Nets On His Back And Then Immediately Took To Twitter To Bury Skip Bayless

David L. Nemec. Getty Images.

The Brooklyn Nets were hit hard yesterday with health and safety protocols to the point where they were going to have just 7 available players if Kevin Durant didn't decide to suit up. He was supposed to get the night off with right ankle soreness but had to give it a go so the Nets could have the minimum 8 guys active. It's important to remember that Durant is 10th in the NBA in total minutes (all 9 ahead have played more games) and is 3rd in minutes per game at 36.9 at the age of 33. Only guy above 31 around that number is LeBron (4th). If anyone deserves a night to rest their ankle, it's Durant. 

So what does he do instead? He plays 48 minutes against the Raptors and throws up a 34/13/11 triple double in the narrow Nets victory

This was just the latest example of why Durant could not be more different than the rest of us. He's better at basketball than any of us are at anything in our lives. What he's doing post injury defies logic really. But you see what makes Durant awesome is that immediately after doing something superhuman like this, at the end of the day he can find a way to somehow relate to the rest of us. You see, as soon as he got off work, he checked Twitter. That's something I'm pretty sure everyone does. Once he got there, he decided to do something else that's extremely relatable. Bury Skip Bayless

Skip is so weird man. I know it's his schtick to relate everything to LeBron because he gets a hard on for the guy but even still. So weird. Can't simply acknowledge what Durant is doing, instead you have to tie it to LeBron? Kinda pathetic really. Good on Durant for calling I'm out.

That's what was so great about Durant's tweet. Simple, quick and to the point, and a shot right between the eyes. The best part about this is apparently Skip has been praising Durant this whole season or something along those lines. That makes me like this tweet even more if I'm being honest. Durant probably knows it's not genuine or something and instead is just a weird slight at LeBron because everything always comes back to him when Skip is involved. 

I also love that people get so worked up over Durant tweets. Go ahead and look at some of those responses under the tweet. I think that's partly why Durant is so active on Twitter, mostly because he doesn't give a shit. He uses the internet just like any other normal person does. On a night that started off where we couldn't be more different, it ended with us being pretty similar. Who hasn't talked shit on Twitter? Who likes Skip Bayless?  

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Back to the game for a second, this was pretty impressive win by the Nets. Yeah, it was against the Raptors, but when you have 8 guys available and that 8 includes several guys who either weren't in the league or have barely played this season, that' impressive. Patty Mills was huge too with 30 and 7 3PM and what a signing he's been. I feel like he wasn't this type of shooter as a Spur and yet he's found a way to bring Team Australia Patty Mills to Brooklyn. Given their Kyrie situation, that's been a massive contributing factor as to why the Nets are 20-8 and sit atop the East.

The main reason is Durant though. Every night he goes out and does things that make you shake your head. He's an all time great playing some of the best basketball of his career at age 33, post achilles surgery. At this point I think we stop trying to make sense of that and just enjoy the ride.