Kevin Durant feels sorry for people like Laura Ingraham who tell sports figures to "stick to sports" as the Golden State Warriors star accused the Fox News host of racism.
Durant drew the ire of Ingraham after NBA All-Star and Cleveland Cavaliers icon LeBron James criticised United States president Donald Trump in a video for Uniterrupted and Uber.
Ingraham, who focused her rant on James, told the NBA stars to "shut up and dribble" the basketball.
She also mentioned James entered the NBA out of high school and implied the Cavs star and Durant, who left Texas after one season, were not smart enough to talk about politics.
"It's just sad to see people who think that way. It's weird. It's not even a place where we should be as humans," Durant told USA Today Friday. "To me, it was racist."
James cursed and said Trump did not care about the American people, while Durant said the USA president was not a great leader.
Ingraham said the two should not "run their mouths" because people "take these ignorant comments seriously".
Durant fired back Friday, saying while he watched Ingraham's entire segment, he would rather "focus on the positive" and ignore her "ignorant comment."
Durant said Trump "made it cool for people to kind of speak their truth and kind of show what they're really about."
He said he will continue to use his platform as an NBA player to voice his opinion because many players "are the American dream."
"I do play basketball, but I am a civilian and I am a citizen of the United States, so my voice is just as loud as hers, I think — or even louder. I can't focus on that," Durant said. "I think we're doing some good things out here, using our platform, and I think what me and LeBron did with Uber [and UNINTERRUPTED] the other day when it came out, I thought it was great. I thought a lot of people enjoyed it. I got so many encouraging texts from it. A lot of people enjoyed what we had to say, a lot more than just politics, which we didn't even talk about.
"It's just life that we talked about. My whole thing is I can’t dwell on that, and I can't let that distract me from the real goal at hand, which is to continue to encourage and empower people around the world.
"I'm still going to be a citizen here in the US when I'm done playing basketball, and my voice still doesn't matter at that point? I don't play basketball 24 hours a day. I live in this world, just like everybody else," Durant added. "I don't get what she's saying, but I know what she's trying to say."
