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Kevin Durant Deserves Your Sympathy With NBA’s Attempt to Cut All the Fun Out of Basketball

Poor, oh poor Kevin Durant. How is that man going to have any fun any more?

The Oklahoma City Thunder forward, arguably the best basketball player (not named LeBron James) in the entire world, is having his fun infringed upon, and it's just not fair.

The NBA is taking a page out of the NFL's book, and cracking down on the fun it allows its players to have. Heaven forbid these grown men aren't able to have a little fun before they do a couple hours of a dribbling, passing, shooting and slam dunk-arooing, right?

The league is mandating that players are only allowed to take 30 seconds from the end of pregame introductions to get on the court for the opening tip. This is a grave injustice for players like Durant and other NBA stars who love to peacock around before the game begins, whether it's throwing chalk into the air (everyone's favorite pastime), doing pull-ups on the rim (working on your fitness!) or just acting like a maniac in some sort of an attempt to get jazzed up for the basketball game (concussions are nothing to joke about, you guys). 

Durant, for one, ain't happy with this development, no sirree. 

"I personally don't like it," Durant complained to NewsOK.com. "Every player in this league has routines they do with their teammates, rituals they do before the game and before they walk on the floor. The fans like it. The fans enjoy it. You see the fans mimicking the guys who do their stuff before the game. To cut that down really don't make no sense. Why would you do it? I really don't agree with it, but I don't make the rules."

KD is onto something. How the heck are NBA fans going to know the party has begun? Like, seriously. This is what we're going to be missing out as sports fans!

The horror! Can you imagine an NBA where we aren't allowed to watch Kevin Durant tie his shoes? That's what the fans want. The people who paid hundreds of dollars for those courtside seats? They didn't pay that to see Durant score 30 a game. Oh no, no … they spent that money to see Durant lace 'em up and go through orchestrated handshakes with everyone in the greater Oklahoma City area. And heaven forbid Matt Kemp is in attendance.

Sidenote: Did Kevin Durant grow up wanting to be a 6-foot-9 athletic freak who makes a living tying his shoes and slapping his hands? If his answer is yes in the slightest, then he truly deserves our sympathies. You don't want to kill someone's dreams, man.

Celtics fans should be thanking the basketball gods that David Stern and his no-fun cronies didn't come down on this a few years back. How in the world would the C's had won the NBA title in 2008 had James Posey not been allowed to hug his teammates before the game? At the very best, they would have been knocked from the playoffs in the first round, at the very worst they would all be addicted to drugs at this point.

You don't want that on your conscience, Mr. Stern. Oh no you don't.

So bravo, Kevin Durant. You are the voice of reason. Someone needed to step up. This is not communist Soviet Union. If you want to dance and slap fives before making millions of dollars to put a ball in a basket, you should be allowed to, even if it does take the better part of a half hour to do so.

Preach on and tie those shoes, my friend. It's your right. Don't let the man take all of the fun out of playing sports for a (luxurious) living. Settling for anything else would be a disgrace.