Jonathan Abrams, a New York Times bestselling author and sports reporter, has covered the NBA for the Los Angeles Times, worked as a staff writer for ESPN’s Grantland and Bleacher Report Magazine, and written books including “Boys Among Men,” about the NBA’s prep-to-pro generation, and “The Come Up: An Oral History of the Rise of Hip-Hop.”
In an exclusive HoopsHype interview about his new book, “When We Were Young and Fearless: Kevin, Russell, James, and the Making of the Modern NBA,” Abrams discussed the Thunder’s rise and breakup, player empowerment and more.
You can buy Abrams' new book When We Were Young and Fearless: Kevin, Russell, James, and the Making of the Modern NBAat Amazon and Barnes & Noble online stores.
What made you see Durant, Westbrook and Harden’s story as one of friendship, loyalty and betrayal, beyond basketball camaraderie, and turn it into a book?
Jonathan Abrams: I think the sweet spot for these stories is looking at events from 15 or 20 years ago, and we’re just getting into that window. The league then wasn’t what it is now. It was maturing into what we see today. Social media was small, there was no League Pass, teams and players were isolated, and people didn’t view players as brands yet. Then you see that concentration of talent arriving in Oklahoma City. They get KD in 2007, move from Seattle to Oklahoma City the next year and get Russ, then James. These stars come together, their star power keeps growing, and they have such different, dynamic games and personalities. I don’t know if we’ll see that much talent in one place, that early in their careers, again. Another piece of that answer is that I was young in my career. I covered the Clippers for the Los Angeles Times during Kevin’s rookie season. I’d see Kevin come into L.A. as this string-bean rookie. Meanwhile, the Clippers practiced at a regular fitness center, something like an LA Fitness. Guys like Elton Brand and Shaun Livingston rehabilitated injuries next to soccer moms coming in to work out. It was a completely different league. Within a few years, everybody had multimillion-dollar practice complexes, and everybody became a brand. The league really started taking off in the mid-2000s.
When did you recognize this story as a starting point for player empowerment rather than just a basketball what-if?
JA: The obvious jumping-off point, if we’re looking at the mid-2000s, is LeBron’s Decision in 2010. I don’t know if players fully understood their autonomy before LeBron left Cleveland for Miami and joined that behemoth of a team. That directly influenced the decisions James, Russell and Kevin made later in their careers.
What surprised you most about the three players while reporting the book, especially something that challenged their public images?
JA: The easy answer is that Russell has a much fuller personality than he shows publicly. Of the three, Russell was the one who didn’t talk to me for the book. But he didn’t speak about his retirement either, so I can’t really blame him for not talking to me. In a way, that helped me build a fuller character. I felt free to write about him more holistically by talking to teammates, coaches and people who had been along for the ride. One of the greatest compliments came from my editor, who said, “I came into this project thinking one way about Russell, but I have a much deeper appreciation for him, what he accomplished and his journey after reading the book.”
What’s funny is that after I turned in the book, my fiancé and I went to New York and saw “Proof” on Broadway with Ayo Edebiri and Don Cheadle. I looked to my left, maybe seven feet away, and George Clooney was watching the play a few people behind me. Everybody stood at the end. I looked at Clooney, then toward Cheadle and Ayo, and then noticed Russell two rows in front of me. I didn’t say anything, but what a funny coincidence: Clooney was on one side, and Russell, whom I’d spent two years trying to reach, was right in front of me.
Did writing the book change your view of how much individuals must sacrifice to win in a team sport?
JA: That’s a good question. My perspective has changed throughout my journalism career, from watching the NBA as a child to covering it professionally. People’s priorities and objectives have evolved. As a kid, you look at Michael Jordan, or, growing up in L.A., Magic Johnson, and think, “The Lakers drafted him, he’ll stay forever, retire a Laker and bring them championships.” You expect him to work his tail off, and that’s all he’ll do. Now, individuals are brands trying to maximize their careers. Championships will shape their legacies and the debates long afterward, but when you’re building generational wealth, championships can become secondary. You might not feel jaded, but you realize the game isn’t what it was when you were a kid, especially as you become more aware of the money. The athletes you saw as role models might have different motivations than you thought.
The biggest sports cliché is an athlete saying, “It’s a business,” but it’s true. It’s not a hobby. It’s their livelihood. One thing I realized working in this industry is that there might be more NBA players who don’t like playing basketball than players who do, or whose favorite sport isn’t basketball. That’s sad to think about. I’m in my mid-40s, and I still wake up at 5 a.m. a couple of times a week to play pickup. But if I describe my job to somebody and say I sometimes get tired of going to NBA games, it sounds crazy. I’ve seen about a thousand at this point. Eventually, parts of everything become a job.
Having watched Sam Presti build the current Thunder after the original trio’s breakup, do you think Oklahoma City would have won a championship if it had kept Durant, Westbrook and Harden together?
JA: Without a doubt. We’re a long way from it, but people forget how close the 2012 Finals against Miami were. I think the combined point differential through the first four games was five points. Those games went back and forth. Oklahoma City won Game 1, barely lost Game 2 and then went to Miami for the middle three games. The Finals format was different then. They were a young team making names for themselves, coming from Oklahoma City, and they were going to spend a week in Miami during the Finals. James Harden, you know? They changed it soon afterward, but the format then was 2-3-2.
Based on your reporting beyond the public narrative, did finances, basketball considerations or inevitability drive the Harden trade, and who has the responsibility?
JA: That’s the $6 million question, because I think that was the gap between what James wanted and what Oklahoma City offered. Reporting this book, I wanted to act as a lawyer for both sides, present the evidence and let readers decide. I think finances played a role, basketball played a role, and it was probably inevitable. They had at least another season with James. They were so close to winning a championship that they could have kept him another year and seen what happened. At the time, they had concerns about his dedication to basketball. He was an amazing player and athlete, but I don’t think he approached the game as maniacally as Kevin and Russ, who tried to beat each other to the gym. We knew James would be good. We didn’t know how good, or that he would modernize offense the way he did in Houston under Mike D’Antoni. The Thunder also wouldn’t go into the luxury tax then. They had made big financial commitments to Kevin, Russell and Kendrick Perkins. But the biggest what-if on that roster might not even be James. It might be the Tyson Chandler trade in 2009. They had a deal for him, and he was everything they needed and wanted.
The toe injury?
JA: The toe injury. Great call. It’s a footnote in this story, but it’s huge. They rescinded the trade with the Hornets, and Tyson became an All-Star and Defensive Player of the Year. He would have fit perfectly because he didn’t need the ball on offense alongside those three. Instead, Oklahoma City probably paid too much for Perkins to fill its hole at center. Centers still mattered then. They faced the Lakers with Pau Gasol, Andrew Bynum and Lamar Odom, and needed size to counter them while Serge Ibaka was still young and developing. They traded for Perkins a year or two after rescinding the Chandler deal. To me, that was the biggest what-if. I enjoyed talking to Tyson about how he imagined himself on that Thunder team.
Does Sam Presti’s evolution from those early Thunder teams to the current team amaze you?
JA: It’s interesting because I asked Kevin directly whether Presti discussed trading James with him before making the move. Kevin said, “Sam has probably grown since then, but no, back then I just played basketball; he didn’t talk to me about those moves.” I can’t imagine him trading Chet Holmgren without talking to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander first now. I imagine he’s grown. At the same time, Sam had a plan for structuring the entire organization, top to bottom, when it moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City. He executed that beautifully, then did it again by constructing a championship team a couple of years ago.
After covering the NBA for the Times and writing “Boys Among Men” and “The Come Up,” how do you explore such a wide range of sports and culture without getting boxed into one specialty?
JA: I report and write about things that interest me. It’s easy to find motivation to write a book about hip-hop because I love hip-hop. The same goes for “The Wire” or the NBA’s prep-to-pro generation. Those subjects fascinate me. Whatever I cover, I’m interested in the subject and educating myself about it. I never want to think I know everything or have reached my destination. I always want to keep learning.
Do you consider KD's legacy the most interesting among players you’ve covered?
JA: That’s a really interesting question. He has a fascinating legacy. He’s a smart person, but I don’t know if he can put it all into words yet. Maybe he’ll explain it better after his career, because his route has been fascinating. He went to Golden State looking for more than titles. He wanted to play with people who respected every part of his game. He found that environment, but ultimately didn’t feel like one of the guys. Golden State hadn’t drafted him. He wasn’t someone like Andre Iguodala, who came in, earned their appreciation and helped deliver their first championship in years. Then he tried to create his own situation in Brooklyn with friends like DeAndre Jordan and Kyrie Irving, and that didn’t work. I don’t know what his ideal basketball situation would be. In Oklahoma City, he felt he’d reached the heights he could reach within that organization and his partnership with Russell. It’s a fascinating legacy. As for the most interesting legacy of someone I’ve covered, off the top of my head, I’d probably give that to Kobe Bryant. But KD has had a hell of a career and a hell of a legacy.
If you could add another chapter or section to the book, what would you explore?
JA: That’s interesting. The last four or five chapters focus on what Kevin, Russell and James did separately. I would have loved to give James three chapters on what he accomplished offensively in Houston, Russell three or four chapters on his triple-doubles, and Kevin another three or four chapters. All of that would have been interesting, but the bulk of the book covers their time as teammates in Oklahoma City, in their early 20s, learning about the league. They had to learn how to lose before learning how to win because those first Thunder teams were absolutely horrible. You have to cover their backgrounds and everything that brought them to Oklahoma City, then cover their time there. I felt the book peaked with the 2012 Finals and the James trade shortly afterward.
What do you hope readers who know the trio mainly through highlights take away from the book?
JA: I hope they see the NBA becoming today’s massive marketing and financial behemoth, and understand where it stood just 15 or 16 years ago. Players were just starting to become brands and build their names. These guys became teammates and learned how to win, with all that talent in one place. Back in 2006 or 2007, watching the Seattle SuperSonics regularly on television would have been impossible for me. The NBA has come so far.
When Harden and Durant join Westbrook in retirement, how do you think people will remember those three?
JA: As people who changed the game and helped it evolve into what it is now. Kevin advanced player autonomy and brought an incredible offensive game. If you asked me to choose one player from the past 20 years to get a bucket, I’d probably take Kevin. Put him in the midrange and let him shoot over anybody. If you asked me who modernized the game with step-back threes, Eurosteps, space and pace, I’d say James Harden. If you asked me who had an unbreakable will to extract every ounce of talent from his body, I’d say Russell Westbrook, a direct descendant of Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant. They’re all MVPs for a reason.
Kobe is obviously one of the greats, but if you set winning aside, Harden is arguably the second-greatest shooting guard ever.
JA: The runs he had were incredible. Mike D’Antoni told me he worried Harden couldn’t deliver what he asked of him every night. But every time Mike asked, James delivered that and more over two or three years. His Houston run was nothing short of amazing. The common denominator between James and Kobe is their immaculate footwork. If you watch someone operate on a basketball court with the technical footwork of a soccer player, it’s James and Kobe. Add Kyrie Irving, too. They know the angles and how to pivot. It’s amazing watching them work.
You can buy Abrams' new book When We Were Young and Fearless: Kevin, Russell, James, and the Making of the Modern NBAat Amazon and Barnes & Noble online stores.
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This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Jonathan Abrams: Thunder would have won NBA title if they had kept Durant, Westbrook and Harden together