Much like Twitter, the folks behind this year’s ESPY Awards haven’t forgotten about Peyton Manning’s Kevin Durant joke in 2017.
The Hall of Fame quarterback, 46, made a brief appearance during the 2022 ESPYs on Wednesday night, when he encouraged this year’s host, Steph Curry, to reuse his joke about Durant because it’s still relevant.
“When I hosted the ESPYs five years ago, I made a little quip about Kevin Durant wanting to play for a great team that made a lot of headlines,” Manning said of the 33-year-old Nets star to Curry, 34, over FaceTime. “Feel free to use that one because it hasn’t aged a day.”
When Manning hosted the show in 2017, he jabbed Durant over his departure from Oklahoma City to Golden State, where he joined Curry and won two championship titles.
Peyton Manning made an appearance during the 2022 ESPYs on Wednesday. Twitter
Kevin Durant, here at the 2017 ESPYs, seemed unamused with Peyton Manning’s jab at the time. Twitter“The Final Five won the most Olympic medals of any US Women’s Gymnastics team ever. And our gymnastics team was so dominant that Kevin Durant told me he wants to play for them next year,” Manning quipped at the time. “And I gotta tell ya, I don’t think you’d start for that team, Kevin.”
Though the audience laughed at Manning’s jab, Durant was stone-faced, a reaction that still resonates to this day. When asked about the joke Wednesday on Twitter, Durant said, “If it was funny I would’ve laughed… it’s a simple concept.”
Durant made waves back in 2016 when he announced he was leaving Russell Westbrook and the Thunder to join Curry and the Warriors’ championship team — which became the leverage for Manning’s joke.
Kevin Durant requested a trade out of Brooklyn earlier this summer. Corey Sipkin
Kevin Durant originally signed with the Nets in June 2019. Charles Wenzelberg/New York PostThe 12-time NBA All-Star would go on to play with the Warriors from 2016-19, with the team making the finals all three seasons. Durant was named the Finals MVP after the Warriors’ two consecutive NBA championships in 2017 and 2018.
Durant — who signed with the Nets in the summer of 2019 — requested a trade out of Brooklyn last month, just days after his teammate, Kyrie Irving, received permission from the team to seek a sign-and-trade.
The duo are close friends off the court and united to play in Brooklyn in hopes of chasing a championship. That plan fell apart when Irving played in just 29 games last season due to his vaccination status, among other issues.
Though Durant was recently linked to the Warriors, chatter about his potential next move continues to permeate.
