The NBA Will Fine Kevin Durant $50,000 For His ‘Offensive And Derogatory’ DMs To Michael Rapaport

Kevin Durant has been at the center of some controversy in recent days. In a series of Instagram direct messages to Michael Rapaport from December that Rapaport posted to Twitter on Tuesday, Durant used a number of misogynistic and anti-gay slurs that were directed toward Rapaport in response to a tweet about a postgame interview he gave to TNT.

Durant addressed this on Thursday night before the Brooklyn Nets played the Charlotte Hornets. He previously tweeted “my bad” to Rapaport, but on Thursday, he did not apologize, instead saying he was sorry “that people seen that language I used,” and that “that’s not really what I want people to see and hear from me.”

One of the only remaining questions here was whether the NBA would respond to all of this, and on Friday, the league stepped in and levied a $50,000 fine against Durant. The news was originally broken by Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who used some interesting language to convey that this is happening.

Shortly after, the league issued a statement, saying that the fine was “for using offensive and derogatory language on social media.”

The league has doled out fines and suspensions for players using anti-gay language in the past, with two famous examples being Kobe Bryant getting fined $100,000 and Rajon Rondo receiving a one-game suspension. Both of these, however, were on-court instances.