“Still KD: Through the Noise” Review

I may be a Milwaukee Bucks fan, but Kevin Durant has been my favorite superstar to watch in the league. Throughout his ten-year career, he’s managed to win the MVP and make an NBA Finals appearance.

Durant faced a tough decision before last season began.  Once his contract with the Oklahoma City Thunder expired, Durant was faced with a decision to rejoin the franchise that he had helped build or join another team that could help his chances of winning.

Durant faced a ton of scrutiny after he decided to join the Golden State Warriors this last offseason. The Warriors have been one of the league’s best teams for the last four years.  Stephen Curry has won two MVPs with the Warriors.  Curry and the Warriors have already won a championship in the past two years.  They’ve had an intense rivalry building up with the Cleveland Cavaliers since their reign in the NBA.  If the Warriors and Cavaliers made it back to the Finals this year, it would be the third year in a row that they’ve faced each other in the finals.  This third matchup would be the tiebreaker, as Cleveland won last year.  It felt like a cheat code though, with Durant on the Warriors.

For someone who was once loved by nearly the entire league, Durant was now a public enemy. Many said that he took the easy way out to win a championship. At the end of the day though, the only one thing matters is who’s standing on top of the podium with the trophy in their hands.

Kevin Durant allows us to follow him behind the scenes throughout the playoffs in his new documentary Still KD: Through the Noise. After a successful regular season with his new team, Durant prepares for winning a championship. We’re already allowed to get a pretty good idea of what athletes go through on a daily basis with all of social media, but I’ve never seen an NBA superstar give us some insight at some of the biggest moments of his career. This documentary felt very unique compared to other sports documentaries.

One reason why I’m such a big fan of Kevin Durant is because he’s laid back and happens to be a pretty nice person. This is one reason why I’ll never understand the scrutiny of Kevin Durant after he signed with his new team. There’s a good portion of the documentary where Durant shows us some of the charity that he does. He just built a few basketball courts in his hometown according to the documentary.

There’s also plenty of footage of Durant leading kid basketball camps and countless other ways to make an impact on others. How could not like the guy after seeing that section of the documentary itself? It only backs up my support that I have for Durant.

Durant also responds to the harsh criticism that he received after signing with Golden State. Many fans in Oklahoma City assumed that Durant didn’t care at all about the previous ten years that he spent with the franchise when he left them.  We later on figure out that Durant was really torn about the decision to the point where he didn’t even have a party for the fourth of July. He said that it was really tearing him apart on the inside, but he knew Golden State was the best chance for him to win a championship now.  This was truly a perspective on Durant’s decision that was long overdue since Durant is usually pretty quiet on social media.

Kevin Durant also shows us that he didn’t join Golden State to cruise to a championship. We get a look into the intense workout routine of the former MVP.  It appears that Durant works just as hard if not harder than the rest of his teammates after watching the documentary.  In one scene, Durant even goes as far to arrive at the arena extremely early before anyone else has even arrived in order to get more shots up in pregame. This just shows us that Durant’s thirst for a championship is on another level.

It was cool to see Durant’s perspective about each pivotal moment in the playoffs, but perhaps the best part of the documentary was the coverage of the finals. Yes, the Warriors and Cavaliers made it happen this year. This series was the tiebreaker between the two teams and KD is giving us the behind the scene pass to it. Golden State appeared as if they were going to sweep the Cavaliers after going up 3-0. I was curious about Durant’s thoughts, about the momentum of the series and how the Warriors felt after they lost game four to the Cavaliers. Shockingly, Durant was somewhat concerned about losing game four even though the Warriors were clearly going to win the championship.

Sure enough, the Warriors ended up winning the championship the very next game.  Durant finally did what he signed up for. Not only did he win the championship, but he also won the finals MVP as well. Durant’s performance was dominating to say the least. He had already silenced the haters in the first year with his new team.

Are we really surprised after watching this documentary tough? I sure wasn’t shocked, but man, was it a sigh of relief to see KD finally winning his first championship. This documentary felt necessary after all of the hate and cloud thrown over Kevin Durant’s name. I think it’s something that every NBA fan should see.