This week in 2016: Kevin Durant’s Warriors debut ends in a 129-100 rout by Kawhi Leonard’s Spurs

Kevin Durant made his Golden State Warriors debut on Tuesday, October 25, 2016, and it went badly wrong: the San Antonio Spurs won 129-100 at Oracle Arena on opening night. Durant did his part with 27 points and 10 rebounds. But a team built to look unbeatable lost by 29 in its first game, and Kawhi Leonard had the best night of his career to that point.

How the night unfolded

San Antonio led 31-20 after one quarter and 64-46 at halftime, and the margin never got close to single digits again. Leonard scored a career-high 35. He had 31 of them by the end of the third quarter, made all 15 of his free throws and added five steals. LaMarcus Aldridge had 26 points and 14 rebounds, and Jonathon Simmons, an unheralded reserve, scored a career-high 20 off the bench.

The bigger story was the glass. The Spurs outrebounded Golden State 55-35, took 21 offensive rebounds to the Warriors’ 8, and won second-chance points 26-4. Their bench outscored Golden State’s 54-16. The Warriors made just 7 of 33 three-point attempts and turned the ball over 16 times.

Durant was the one Warrior who looked ready. He scored the franchise’s first basket of the season and finished with 27 points, 10 rebounds, four assists, two steals and two blocks, without a single turnover, in about 37 minutes. Stephen Curry added 26 points but went 3 of 10 from deep. Draymond Green had 18 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and five steals, and Klay Thompson scored 11 on 5-of-13 shooting. Afterward Durant said the loss “woke us up a bit,” and Steve Kerr said he had not had his team ready to play.

Why it mattered then

No arrival had been talked about more that summer. Golden State had won an NBA-record 73 games in 2015-16 and then lost the Finals to Cleveland after leading the series 3-1. In July, Durant left Oklahoma City after nine seasons with the franchise and signed with the team that had just eliminated his Thunder in the Western Conference finals. Many people predicted the Warriors would lose only a handful of games all season.

San Antonio was starting over too. It was the Spurs’ first opener since Tim Duncan retired that July. Gregg Popovich’s team answered the doubts by beating the league’s new superteam on its own floor, with Leonard now clearly the man in charge.

What it led to

The blowout turned out to be a false alarm. Golden State went 67-15, lost only one playoff game all spring, and won the 2017 championship. Durant was named Finals MVP, then won the title and the award again in 2018. The two teams met again in the 2017 Western Conference finals. Leonard was carrying the Spurs to a big lead in Game 1 when he injured his ankle, and the Warriors swept the series.

Looking back, that October night was the last time anyone pictured those Warriors losing by 29. Ten years later, it is still one of the strangest debuts a superstar has had.