Colin Sheridan: Kevin Durant's unseemly social spat with Michael Rapaport has real victims

Late last week, the Durant and actor Michael Rapaport became embroiled in a social media donnybrook that was equal parts funny, pathetic, and a sad reminder that social media is a conduit for more bad than good in all our lives

The Brooklyn Nets’ Kevin Durant who was part of an online spat with actor Michael Rapaport. Picture: Emilee Chinn/Getty Images

Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets is a two-time NBA champion, two-time finals MVP, one of the most recognisable sports stars in America, and arguably amongst the best dozen or so basketball players that have ever played.

He’s 6 feet 10 inches tall, and crucially, 32 years old.

Michael Rapaport is an actor, comedian, and podcaster whose credits include Boston Public, True Romance and Dr. Dolittle 2. His book ‘This Book Has Balls: Sports Rants from the MVP of Talking Trash’ serves as a little clue as to where this story is headed.

Rapaport is perhaps most famous as Phoebe’s cop-boyfriend Gary in four episodes of the sitcom Friends. He was arguably one of the best 15 actors in those episodes. He is 6 feet 2 inches tall, and crucially, 51 years old.

Late last week, the two became embroiled in a social media donnybrook that was equal parts funny, pathetic, and a sad reminder that social media is a conduit for more bad than good in all our lives.

Unlike most social media spats, this story developed in private, after Rapaport criticised Durant’s petulant one-word response to broadcaster Charles Barkley’s question following the resumption of the NBA three months ago.

What we now know is, the pair then traded DMs (‘direct messages’ to the Boomers amongst us), calling each other out — Rappaport accusing Durant of being soft, Durant telling Rappaport to shut the hell up. This would be the PG summary of the early repartee, which climaxed with the Brooklyn Nets small forward calling the Dr Dolittle star a series of homophobic slurs, threatening him with physical violence, and — wait for it — calling him out to fight in probably the only publishable text of the cache: “Meet me on w 17th tomorrow at 10...or better yet, what’s your address?”.

How do we know all of this? Well, Durant, who may be near unstoppable in full flight on a basketball court, should’ve thought twice before threatening Phoebe Buffay’s second most memorable on-screen boyfriend after Paul Rudd; Rapaport posted the DMs to his 2.2 million followers on Instagram. To be clear, the messages were not leaked or inadvertently shared, Rapaport posted them of his own volition.

This is a fable with no heroes, and no winners. Durant, no doubt sensing a backlash for having had his language exposed, followed one tepid “my bad, Mike” tweet, with an even more speculative non-apology apology. “I’m sorry that people seen that language I used,” Durant told reporters. “That’s not really what I want people to see and hear from me, but hopefully I can move past it and get back out there on the floor.”

For his part, Rapaport posted a video to his Instagram, from his car (always from his car), saying he felt bad “this situation from Durant has gotten out of hand...I feel bad about it…”

The damage had been done for both parties, however; Rapaport suffered the wrath of mainstream and social media for making private conversations public, whatever his motives (usual hype merchants Stephan A Smith on ESPN and Skip Bayless on Fox brought the drama to Days of Our Lives levels).

Durant — who has form when it comes to biting back at online critics — was once again exposed as an insecure superstar. The NBA fined him a maximum $50,000. The Brooklyn Nets felt the need to “have a conversation” with their star player regarding the nature of the messages.

Before this story was a week old, the two protagonists looked less like star athlete and intellect going toe to toe, and more like middle-aged Hugh Grant and Colin Firth stumbling around a London restaurant, fighting, very badly, over Bridget Jones.

For all the memes their shared folly has birthed, however, there is an insidious element to this that has gone largely ignored; what Durant said in his non-apology apology, and what he actually said in the private messages to Rapaport. The language of the messages was anti-gay and misogynistic. Does this mean Durant is homophobic? No, but he chose to use this verbiage to insult Rappaport. It’s locker-room talk, we’ll mutter, but explain that to our gay sons and daughters, and see how that makes them feel.

As for his ‘apology’; well, his wish to “move past it” ignores what the “it” actually is. His expressed sadness that “...not really what I want people to see and hear from me” stinks of self-serving BS, as well as a distinct lack of awareness of what was wrong with what he said to begin with.

Nobody should really care about two grown men trading angry, even abusive messages to each other. Rapaport has reinvented himself as an Upper East Side malcontent who talks smack and speaks his own shouty version of truth to power through the loudhailer of an insatiable internet.

Durant’s vulnerability to criticism and his willingness to engage may be immature, but at least serves as a deviation from the contrived norm (the NBA consistently deviates from this agent-inspired norm, making it a fascinating league to follow).

It’s not Durant’s appetite for conflict that jars, though. His was an expression of regret for getting caught, not for hurting anybody with his language.

There is not one openly gay player currently on an NBA roster. There has only been one — Jason Collins — in the league’s history. One player, of over four and a half thousand that have played the NBA. This stat is mirrored in the NFL, NHL, and major league baseball, and stands in cold contrast to women’s sports, where openly gay athletes generally thrive without fear of being rejected by a locker room or a fanbase.

Kevin Durant is not responsible for there being no openly gay men in the NBA.

But, by aiming anti-gay slurs at Rapaport with such — dare I say it — gay abandon, he was deliberately inferring Rapaport to be the lesser man. Durant is not the problem, but he certainly is part of it. The lack of scrutiny the language of both his original messages and half-assed apologies have elicited has only served to highlight how great that problem remains.