Kevin Durant's pending free agency has at least one NBA Hall of Famer scratching his head.
Rick Barry, who won an NBA Championship with the Warriors in 1975, is absolutely baffled by the very thought of the Golden State All-Star leaving the franchise to potentially join the Knicks.
"He has a chance to be part of something exceptional, something so special. Why would you want to leave that when you can have fun playing the game the right way?" he told Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News on Friday. "You're not going to have to be the guy who has to do everything to be able to win. You're going to a place like that your chances of winning are diminished greatly.
"So you're giving up the chance to be a champion when you were just the two-time MVP in the finals to go and be what? For what purpose? To go to New York where you're going to be under a microscope to a point that you don't even realize the microscope that you're going to be under. To leave a team where you have so many of these great players, I think it would be a silly decision and the wrong decision on his part."
Durant, 30, is scheduled to become a free agent this summer and it is all but a foregone conclusion that he will be cutting ties with the Warriors despite winning two NBA Finals titles and will be in contention for a third this spring.
The 10-time All-Star forward received a lot of criticism for joining the star-studded Warriors three years ago and is believed to want to prove he can carry a team to a championship without taking the easy route.
Barry, 74, does not see the purpose in doing that.
"Who gives a crap about (Durant's) legacy? He's already one of the greatest in the history of the game," he said. "Nobody has ever been like him. He's an anomaly. There's never been a player who played that position like he plays. Never. So he's something special already. What does he have to prove? If that's the reason he's going to do it is to prove he can do it, he might not get it done."
The Knicks have had just two winning seasons in the last 18 years and just traded away their biggest star in Kristaps Porzingis.
Yet the front office remains "highly optimistic" on signing Durant and the trade has given the Knicks the infrastructure to sign him and another star player to a max contract.
"Selfishly, I want him to stay because I love the way he plays and I think he makes the Warriors such a great team and they have a chance to be one of the unique teams in the history of the game," Barry said. "Why would you want to leave that? What reason?"
While the Hall of Famer has close ties to the Warriors, he also is familiar with what comes with playing in New York.
Barry was born and raised just outside New York City in Elizabeth, New Jersey and played for the New Jersey Nets in the ABA.
So he also worries how Durant would handle the spotlight that comes with playing in New York.
"He's a guy from a little town (in Maryland) and stuff," Barry said. "He wants to go to New York? New York compared to the Bay Area where sports are like, okay. But it's not New York. I mean, c'mon."