The primary folly here is trying to divine the motives and innermost feelings of professional athletes. We know so little of them that doesn't come by way of razor commercials and magazine spreads and strategically chosen
television interviews in front of strategically chosen topiary. We have as much genuine insight into Kevin Durant's head and Phil Mickelson's bedroom as we do into LeBron James' soul and Tiger Woods' underpants. To call Durant humble—over and over and over again—is to look at a passing cloud and swear you see the Vienna Boys' Choir.
And not to put too fine a point on it, but who freaking cares? All great athletes are arrogant; some just hide it better on camera. The people ladling praise on the guy for saying shucks and thanking the equipment manager and generally being very Beaver Cleaver with everyone—"Durant always asks the [University of Texas] basketball sports information director, Scott McConnell, about his sons by name,"
the New York Times informs—evidently would rather use athletes as large vessels for vicarious moralizing, something to put down on the mantel next to the Precious Moments figurines, than admit we care about them only because they jump high.
Of course, that's what really matters in an age that judges athletes foremost on the quality of their salesmanship. LeBron packaged himself poorly. Durant has sold himself well, or at least has given of himself so little that the very idea of his reticence could be fashioned into a cudgel against the Very Bad Thing of the day—ego run amok. More than anything, Durant offers the moralists a clean bank shot at LeBron and his cohort. He will remain useful in this role for a time, and then one day he'll go and do some Very Bad Thing and shatter all our precious illusions. We'll have no choice but to pick out a new unicorn, a new cardboard idol to worship, and all the while we'll wonder how we got the last one so wrong. Did we ever know Kevin Durant at all?
