It's been three weeks since the Oklahoma City Thunder lost to the Miami Heat in game 5 of the NBA Finals, and now being teammates, Kevin Durant can't hide from the hurt this summer.
Durant admits seeing James every day is not the ideal situation to be put in. In fact, being teammates with the one obstacle that took a championship from him, bothers the young super-star.
"It does. It does, but what can I do?" Durant said Tuesday. "He's my teammate now. I'm a team player. I can't let that affect this. This is bigger than that. It's tough to lose in the Finals and play with the guy you've been going up against for five games who beat you. So me, I'm just going to get over it, still be a great teammate, come out and play hard."
Though he was upset at losing his first Finals bid, Durant said there's been enough time to turn the page.
"I switched that mode off and turned it into USA Basketball mode and we're all teammates and I'm glad we've come together as a group."
Both players spent a lot of time with each other, prior to being selected for the Olympic team, and even consider one-another to be good friends. Durant was even invited by James to train last summer in Ohio. Both stars even visited one-another's home. And let's not forget their flag football challenge, via Twitter, that they participated in as well.
They may not be BFF's, but they never had a problem with each other.
Durant's pain will be short-lived as he is not the first player on Team USA to experience pain of this kind.
After the heartbreak Finals loss to Dallas last year, James is one who can relate. It was especially difficult on James, who played poorly in the fourth quarter of that series, adding new criticism to go along with his televised departure from Cleveland the previous summer.
James admits he hardly wanted to do anything after the loss, and said that it would have bothered him if he had to play with, then, Mavericks center Tyson Chandler last summer.
"It bothers him," James said. "I bet it bothers him and Russell (Westbrook), you know, they probably don't want to hear about it. It would bother me, it would bother anyone that you lose to someone in the Finals, where everyone's competing at the highest level and you want to win and then you have to team up with them not too far removed from the games."
Though James just got over this pain, after winning his first championship, it's not set in stone as five-time NBA Finals Champion Kobe Bryant knows.
Bryant was in Durant's shoes four years ago, having to shake off the disappointment of a Finals loss to the Boston Celtics and get back on the court for the Olympics. He said it's normal to not want to play for a few days, but figures Durant has had enough time to get over it by now.
"But then again, I wasn't playing on the Olympic team with, you know, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce and (Kevin) Garnett," Bryant said. "He's got to look at LeBron every day. I didn't have to do that. So I don't know if I could do that. I'd be probably be trying to destroy him every single day in practice to try to, I don't know, take a little edge off maybe."
The fact that Durant and James are friends doesn't make much difference to one of the NBA's fiercest competitors.
"Being the friends thing, I mean that's fine," Bryant said. "Once you start playing, I'd really, I'd have to go after him. There's just no way."
