Don't hate the player: Kevin Durant made the right basketball decision

The vitriol may not be as venomous as when LeBron James took his talents to South Beach (in a televised special that raised money for the Boys and Girls Club), but Kevin Durant's decision to join the 73-win Golden State Warriors has its share of detractors.

From some of sports television's most famous talking heads, to fellow athletes, rival ballers, and petty fans burning and shooting his jersey, Durant's decision has come under fire, both figuratively and literally.

Yet Durant has done nothing to deserve such condemnation. In fact, the result of his challenging deliberation, as he put it in a Players' Tribune letter that might be the only obnoxious element of this spectacle, is actually quite sensible.

Professional athletes are often criticized for prioritizing wealth, fame, and everything else that comes with their status, over wins.

Durant - a former MVP, seven-time All-Star, and six-time All-NBA selection - took less money than he could've made in Oklahoma City to join an already loaded team in Golden State, where the four-time scoring champion will accept at least somewhat of a decreased role in order to put himself in the best position to win a plethora of games and a multitude of championships.

Imagine a team that can rest the likes of a Durant or a Stephen Curry, and still be able to trot out one of the greatest lineups ever assembled. That's the 2016-17 Warriors.

Related: How the Warriors compare to superteams of the past

Yes, six years ago, Durant couldn't quite comprehend what drove James to Miami, but nine ring-less seasons change a player, particularly one as transcendentally talented as KD. Think about how long and agonizing LeBron's path to a first title felt - Durant has already waited longer than James ever did.

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life" - Muhammad Ali

A six-year maturation isn't quite the generational divide Ali was referencing in his famous quote above, but if everyone thought at 27 the way they did at 21, the world would be much worse off.

None of this is to say there aren't reasons for frustration and disappointment around the basketball world.

Unless you're a Warriors fan, a Cavaliers fan basking in the glow of that elusive championship, or a fan of an up-and-coming team with no plans to contend in the near future like the Timberwolves or 76ers, Monday's proceedings almost render your team irrelevant, and that feeling of seemingly playing for nothing is an empty one.

Don't blame Durant for that emptiness, though. What led to this moment was an unpredictable sequence of events that included a massive new TV deal that sent the salary cap skyrocketing, and the already historic Warriors owning a fairly clean cap sheet, aided by the fact Curry became a generational talent while playing on an absurdly team-friendly contract signed while he was viewed as more of an injury risk than an MVP. And don't discount how this year's West final may have shaped the NBA's new imbalance of power.

Perhaps the league could've done more to steady the rising cap from one year to the next. Maybe Thunder owner Clayton Bennett should've been willing to pay the luxury tax sooner, rather than trading James Harden and dismantling a once-in-a-generation collection of young talent.

Things happen. Mistakes are made. Unforeseen events - both positive and negative - set the future in motion.

When it all came together, and Kevin Durant was left with a monumental decision he always said would come down to basketball, he made the easiest choice any basketball mind could.