In the eyes of many, Kevin Durant is now a villain. His perceived sporting sin, among others, is his betrayal of the underdog myth that he made real in his time with the Oklahoma City Thunder. A small-market team fought for championships every year, gaining global prominence and pride as Durant and Russell Westbrook defied the long odds facing a multi-national entertainment product that stakes its identity in the middle of a state most known for its unbeautiful dust. There, he led one of the most exciting, most discussed basketball teams of this century.

That’s over now. Durant has joined the Golden State Warriors to create something decidedly not underdog. He’s moved to the gleaming California bay, the home of technological über-progress and the priciest place in America, to take part in what could be the most dominant team in league history. As is always the case with sports, there’s little in the way of true ethical stakes or compass with this move, but still plenty to get upset about. Fans will always moralize transitions of this magnitude, and Durant’s even larger sin in the eyes of his newfound haters—who largely root first for teams not from OKC—lies in doing something so drastic that it might make the NBA uncompetitive.

Audiences value glory more when the struggle for it is greater, and when its regional representation seems more pure. That’s why one championship in Cleveland, gained less than a month ago, has already done more for LeBron James’ legacy than two in Miami did through years of appreciation. Durant, like James, made a decision that will alleviate his struggle greatly, and titles with the Warriors will not shut many of his skeptics up. In Golden State, he’ll have enough floor space on his shots to average 45 points a night, if that’s what the Warriors want. If he has to miss half the season or more, as he did in 2014-15, his team could still win upwards of 60 games without him—especially now that they’re adding depth by way of cheap ring-chasing contracts to veterans like Zaza Pachulia and David West.

That battleship is where Durant’s going. What he leaves behind is a devastated franchise, one that was all but assured to win a championship with four brilliant young stars on their roster five years ago. While the accomplishments of the Durant-Westbrook era will live on—four Western Conference Finals appearances in six years, including a Finals berth, is pretty good—this team will ultimately be remembered more for (and haunted by) what it didn’t achieve. After trading James Harden in 2012, the Thunder never returned to the Finals, often falling short due to injury problems. But their collapse against the same Warriors Durant now joins, this past May, happened while they were at full strength.

It also underscored all the popular doubts about one of the more fascinating duos in NBA history. Durant and Westbrook were a hypnotizing, extremely rare cocktail that often didn’t work, but which destroyed everything in front of it when it worked, and which usually won through sheer potency, anyway, when it didn’t. Hyde overcame Jekkyl after the Thunder took a 3-1 lead on the Warriors, though, with Westbrook playing erratic and overexcited offense while the low-key Durant settled for too few shots and the Warriors gradually asserted their will toward a series comeback.

That the Durant-Westbrook pairing could nearly win it all in June but cease to exist on the Fourth of July is difficult to comprehend, particularly when half of the unit jumped onto the ship of their sorest enemy. This sort of conglomerate team was meant to be impossible under the terms of the league’s current collective bargaining agreement, but a surprisingly lush influx of new TV cash and the general long-term instability of collective bargaining agreements conspired—along with a host of other bad OKC kismet—toward a Warriors team that, on paper, will cast much more of a shadow over the league than LeBron’s reviled Heat ever could have.

It is, in other words, more than understandable if the state of Oklahoma has raw feelings about Durant as it faces a potential rebuild in a city that was only ever appealing to high-end NBA players because of the chance to play with two superstars. Durant met the pressure of being a savior for a franchise that wouldn’t be relevant without him, but the achievement of putting little OKC on the map of course also leaves him with the karmic bill of taking all their special feelings away, all at once and all so painfully. That’s the insane performative binary NBA superstars of Durant’s stature wrestle with during free agency, right or wrong, with such a climate of player control beginning when LeBron made his infamous Decision and opened an era of staggering superstar opportunities, but also the possibility for epic public blowback.

The Thunder get zero return on Durant's departure, with Westbrook not looking especially long for the team either. The shrewdest move for Sam Presti, at this point, is probably to give up wholly on the seminal dream that got his franchise off to such a soaring start, and opt instead for the same cynical brand of calculus that led KD out of town. This means accepting the magnetism of California and the other shining, trophy-rich teams vying for Westbrook and trading him to one of them before he leaves Oklahoma himself, when his own free agency begins a year from now. 

The Thunder can still be an NBA staple, but if that’s the case in the future short or long, it will no longer be because of luck or windfall. Durant’s departure is a blow few franchises could sustain, and continued NBA success in Oklahoma, if we see it, will be the result of superb management from Presti and company. The Westbrook dilemma is the first step on a long, never-ending and frighteningly narrow line of team management that most front offices and fanbases know all too well. Few people thought a basketball capital could be born in the dust, but one was. It will be difficult work to keep it one.