Kevin Durant cries, people feel bad. Chris Bosh cries, they jeer.

By Melissa Rohlin

June 22, 2012 12:53 PM PT

As soon as Kevin Durant found his mother and brother, the NBA star began crying.

They held each other in the tunnel for a while as Durant’s teammates streamed past them.

The Miami Heat had just eliminated the Oklahoma City Thunder from the NBA Finals in an embarrassing 121-106 blowout, a loss that Durant took to heart.

“It hurts. It hurts, man,” Durant said in his postgame interview. “We’re all brothers on this team. It just hurts to go out like this. We made it to the Finals, which was cool for us, but we didn’t want to just make it there.”

Durant’s display of emotion is touching -- and so far, he has mostly received praise on the blogosphere.

But not all NBA athletes are so lucky.

When the Miami Heat lost to the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals last year, Chris Bosh had some waterworks of his own. But he was taunted for his tears instead of commended for his raw display of disappointment.

“To people who made fun of it, I thought it was messed up,” Bosh told ESPN’s Tom Haberstroh. “It meant that much to me. What are your dreams? What do you want the most out of anything in this world? Dangle it in front of you, work hard as hell to get it, and then take it away. Gone.”

Why were their tears received so differently?

Regardless of the reason, perhaps they’re a good omen.

After all, Bosh went on to win the championship Thursday evening in what was perhaps the ultimate form of revenge for everyone who teased him while he was in pain.