Kevin Durant Neither Confirms Nor Denies The Latest Burner Allegations

A series of posts and direct messages from the Twitter account @gethigher77 has been screenshotted, circulated, and attributed to Houston Rockets star Kevin Durant. The contents of those screenshots have been compiled here for your browsing ease. The messages from @gethigher77 have a sense of humor roughly congruent with Durant's, indicate familiarity with NBA figures in Durant's orbit, and besmirch Durant's teammates past (Russell Westbrook, Kyrie Irving) and present (Alperen Sengun, Jabari Smith Jr.), but none of that would be difficult to fake. This all broke into wider circulation during the All-Star Weekend; Durant was seen glued to his phone during warmups before the main event, although, in fairness, he seems to always be on his phone.

Of course, there is historical context here. In 2017, Durant was caught trying to operate a burner: He accidentally tweeted from his main account, referring to himself in the third person, and confessed to doing so. In 2021, the league fined Durant $50,000 for sending Instagram messages with homophobic slurs to actor Michael Rapaport, a target who has become less sympathetic in the years since. In 2023, Durant said he was on the Threads platform with a burner: "Come find me." More generally, he could never be accused of lacking the Poster's Mentality. But the default assumption is to not believe a pile of screenshots of unknown provenance.

At least that was the thinking until Wednesday, when Houston Chronicle Rockets reporter Varun Shankar did the much-needed dirty work and asked Durant about the supposed burner tweets.