Kevin Durant

You have picked up this magazine and you have opened it to read words about Kevin Durant, specifically his place on the HOOP Magazine All-Decade team. As an NBA fan, you knew Durant would be on this team because his picture is on the cover; or, even if the cover were blank with only the words “All-Decade Team,” you knew there would be a story on Durant because…well, duh, he’s Kevin Durant. He’s one of the best small forwards in NBA history. Of course he’s going to make an All-Decade team. Heck, if they had an NBA at 70 team, he’d be on that, too. Easy.

True, and this piece will be mainly about Kevin Durant and his impact on the NBA over the last decade. But as we examine Durant’s brilliance on the court, you need to know that as much as this story is about Durant, it’s also a story about you—yes, you (or rather us, NBA fans) and how you—or we— look at superstars in this age of 24/7/365 coverage of the League. Things have changed, and few things have changed more than how you perceive Durant, quite possibly the greatest scorer of his generation.

But enough about you for now. Let’s talk about what Durant has achieved in the 4,700-square feet he has called his workspace over the last decade. To justify his placement on this team, here are Durant’s impressive numbers and numerous awards since his first season in the NBA. Take a deep breath because we’re diving in:

- 2012 All-Star MVP

- 2013-14 NBA MVP

- 9-time All-Star

- 8-time All-NBA

- 4-time NBA scoring champ

- 3-time NBA Finals participant

- 2-time NBA champion in 2017 and 2018

- 2-time Finals MVP

In 2010, at age 21, he became the youngest player to win a scoring title. He would go on to win three more, becoming one of five players to win the scoring title at least four times. He is one of only five players to score 20,000 points before his 30th birthday. He’s scored more points—19,289— in the last 10 seasons than anyone not named LeBron James (who has 20,349), but averaged more per game (27.9) than anyone, including LeBron James. In those last 10 seasons, Durant is the only player to be in the top five of two-point field goal percentage, three-point field goal percentage, free-throw percentage, true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage. He’s also made 4,903 free throws, more than anyone else—James Harden, included—over this span.

Not only that, Durant changed the perception of what a guy his size (6-9) and with his wingspan (7-5) can do on a basketball court. He’s devastating down on the block, especially when a smaller defender is caught on a switch. Dirk Nowitzki gets a lot of praise for his rarely-blocked one-footed jumper, but no one can block Durant’s stepback jumper, especially if you consider he’s about the same height as Nowitzki and—no shots—10 times more athletic. But Durant can also pull up in transition from deep. He can hit jumpers in your grille off the dribble in a half-court set. He can kill your team in a variety of ways.

Yet any story of Durant’s last decade can’t ignore is his seismic, history-altering, and, to some of you, craven move from the Oklahoma City Thunder to the Golden State Warriors after the 2016 season. And this is where you come in because this where your perceptions of Durant have changed. Because if we look back at the start of his career, no one would have thought Durant, although built like one, would become a lightning rod.

In Oklahoma City, Durant and the Thunder seemed to be a match made in hoops heaven; a humble, budding superstar for a town thirsting for big-league acceptance. Consciously or not, Durant positioned himself as the antithesis to LeBron James, whose nationally televised breakup with the Cleveland Cavaliers in July 2010 came one day after Durant signed a multi-year extension with the Thunder. While James’ “Decision” dominated the national conversation not for the next few days, but the next couple of years, Durant’s decision to ink a multi-year extension with the Thunder barely received 300 words in most wire reports.

He further endeared himself to fans when, at the ceremony where they were celebrating his MVP, he teared up when thanking his mother, Wanda, and telling her “You the real MVP.” Durant’s declaration has been memed to death, but if you go back and watch the speech, you will see a unique, genuine, and heartfelt moment that cemented his place in the NBA galaxy as the humble scoring machine with the cherubic face who loved his mom. Durant was a player you could root for. But when he went West, Durant, who had changed the perception of what a guy his size can do on the basketball court, also changed the perception of how a champion—and a championship team— should be built.

Many fans still cling to the notion that champions should be built organically, through the draft and front office moves. Find a superstar, then draft well, maybe sign a complementary free agent, watch team chemistry grow. There seemed to be a rhythm to winning titles: struggle, reach the doorstep of a title, fail, try again, break through, then hug the Larry O’Brien Trophy, tears running down your face.

It’s not as if Durant hadn’t done all of that—except win a title. He took his only trip to the Finals with Oklahoma City in 2012, and he and fellow future League MVPs James Harden and Russell Westbrook were steamrolled by LeBron James’ Heat. After that Finals appearance, Durant and the Thunder were never able to get back to the pinnacle, let alone to cross that championship threshold. Harden was traded in 2012. Westbrook and Durant suffered injuries at different times that left one of them carrying the superstar burden alone. If he remained in OKC past 2016, it looked as if Durant would eventually be another name in a long line of Hall of Famers who won scoring titles—Pete Maravich, George Gervin, Adrian Dantley, Alex English, Bernard King, Dominique Wilkins, Allen Iverson, and Tracy McGrady, among others—but didn’t win an NBA title.

In that summer of 2016, when he saw his opportunity, like an open corner three-pointer, Durant took it. He joined a 73-win team and became its alpha. Those back-to-back titles with back-to-back Finals MVPs are rare. He’s one of 11 players with multiple Finals MVPs, and one of six to do it two years in a row.

“Kevin is the ultimate luxury,” Kerr said after the Warriors’ Game 1 win over the Rockets in last season’s Western Conference Finals. “A play can break down and you just throw him the ball. He can get you a bucket as well as anybody on earth. This is why anyone would want him on their team.

“You think about a couple years ago, we’re in the Finals and we couldn’t quite get over the hump. Kevin’s a guy who puts you over the hump. I don’t know what you do to guard him. He can get any shot he wants.”

And for some of us, that’s the problem. Durant has made the Warriors feel inevitable. In changing his own story, he altered the championship narrative for the past two seasons, denying us the drama we seek at the end of each season. Durant also hasn’t helped himself by having burner accounts on Twitter and Instagram to clap back at critics. And for many it’s not a good look that he’s complaining he’s not getting enough individual credit for his defense as he did in an interview as the Warriors opened training camp for this season.

But it’s clear Durant didn’t join the Warriors to make friends. He did it to make history his story, and it doesn’t change the enormous impact Durant has had on the NBA over the last decade—whether we like it or not.

Decade of Excellence

2009-10

The start of the decade also marked the beginning of Durant going from a talented stringbean to a player with MVP potential. It’s often said that there’s a big jump from being a 15 PPG scorer to a 20 PPG one to a 25 PPG one. Well, Durant started out as a 20 PPG as a rookie, went to 25 in his second year and jumped right to an NBA-best 30.1 in his third season without breaking a sweat. The erratic shooting and shot selection that plagued him his rookie year was gone, as Durant was confident in his shot, shooting .476 overall while making threes at a .365 clip and making 90 percent of his free throws. Durant made his All-Star debut in the most attended All-Star Game ever, inside the 108,713- seat Cowboys Stadium in Texas, the state where Durant played his college ball. Durant would get his first taste of the postseason as he helped lead the Thunder to a 50-32 season that was only good for an eighth seed in a crowded West. He struggled with his shooting, but still averaged 25 a game in a six-game loss to the Lakers. That season, Durant was named to the All-NBA First Team. Later that summer, Durant was the face of USA Basketball in the FIBA World Cup as he paced the team in scoring (22.8 PPG) and led the country to a gold medal finish.

2010-11

Durant firmly established himself as one of the preeminent scorers in the game with his second straight season of pacing the NBA in scoring with a 27.7 points per game season. Once again he was named to the West All-Star team, and this time around, he was a starter and more than willing to show the world his otherworldly scoring chops. Durant dropped 34 points, but was outshined by Kobe Bryant, who was playing in his homecourt in Los Angeles, for All-Star MVP. Durant helped Oklahoma City improve to 55 wins and a Northwest Division title, and even winning its first playoff series against Denver, where he averaged 32.4 a night. Memphis’ tough defense in the Semifinals gave Durant a harder time as he only put up 26.4 PPG, but it was enough to help the Thunder advance to the West Finals, where they ran into a peaking (and eventual champion) Dallas Mavericks squad. For the second straight year, Durant was named to the All-NBA First Team.

2011-12

During the lockout that preceded the shortened the 2011-12 season, Durant stayed on the radar of fans with his Nike campaign of “Basketball Never Stops,” where he goes around looking for basketball games to take part in, which is based on Durant’s love for the game. It was also the year where his Nike signature shoe, the KD4, really gained traction among shoe enthusiasts. When the season began, Durant picked up where he left off, putting up his now-usual League-leading (for the third time) 28 PPG. He also boosted his rebounding to 6 per contest and started showing out some on defense (a combined 2.5 blocks and steals per game). In the 2012 All-Star Game, Durant outdueled LeBron James for his first All-Star MVP and a 152-149 West victory, each player scoring 36 points. Following the NBA formula of gradual growth, Durant helped the Thunder break through in the postseason, reaching the NBA Finals. They would be overwhelmed by Miami in five games, but Durant proved that he was capable of leading a team to a championship. The bitter end to the season was sweetened a bit over the summer as Durant was part of the 2012 USA Basketball squad that represented USA in the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Playing with seven of the 10 players in our All-Decade Team, Durant and Team USA dominated the international field to a gold finish.

2012-13

If things went according to the NBA stepping stone of progress, 2012-13 would be the one where Durant and the Thunder would be the last team standing at the mountaintop. After three seasons of growth and further progression in the playoffs, this would be the year for the Thunder and it looked every bit that way. The Thunder cruised to a No. 1 seed in the West with a 60-22 season, led by Durant’s deadeye shooting. Durant averaged 28.1 points on his first 50/40/90 season, shooting .510 from the field, .416 from three and .905 from the line. He finished second behind LeBron James in MVP voting and many thought we’d see a rematch—and a matchup we’d thought would dominate the decade—of the two MVP frontrunners in the Finals. It wasn’t to be as Durant’s All-NBA teammate Russell Westbrook would suffer an injury in the first round of the playoffs, leaving Durant unable to carry the Thunder past the Grizzlies in the Semifinals. Durant was named to the All-NBA First Team for the fourth consecutive year.

2013-14

Without Westbrook for almost half the season, it was on Durant to keep the Thunder up. Fueled by last season’s disappointment and given the responsibility to do the heavy lifting all year, Durant shed the “scorer” label and became an all-around player who lifted his teammates. It would be his greatest individual season statistically to date: 32 PPG, 7.4 RPG, 5.5 APG, 1.3 SPG and 0.7 BPG on .503 shooting, .391 three-point shooting and .873 on free throws. Advanced metrics would show his dominance: 29.8 PER, 33 usage percentage, 14.8 Offensive Win Shares, 19.2 Win Shares, 8.4 Offensive Box Plus-Minus, 8.5 Value Over Replacement Player. The most telling was the final standings: at 59-23, the Thunder were just a game off from the previous season, and this was without their second-best player for half the season. All signs pointed to his first MVP, and ever humble, Durant made sure to include his teammates on the dais as he accepted his award and tearfully thanked his mom for the honor. The MVP trophy and Durant’s fifth straight All-NBA First Team, however, was little consolation to the Thunder losing to the eventual champion San Antonio Spurs in the West Finals.

2014-15

If the previous season was his best individual season, this one was Durant’s worst. Even Durant calls it “his toughest year I’ve had playing basketball.” It stemmed from a foot injury that caused him to miss 17 games to open the season, followed by another related procedure on the same foot that ended the season for Durant. The reigning MVP would only play in 27 games and the Thunder would fall out of a postseason berth.

2015-16

After a lost season, Durant was primed for a redemption year. He showed little rust from the onset and was back to his MVP ways with a 28.2 PPG, 8,2 RPG, 5 APG with a block and steal a night, while maintaining his shooting brilliance (.505/.387/.898). He played in his seventh All-Star Game and was back in the All-NBA (Second Team) Team. For the fourth time, Durant helped lead the Thunder to a Conference Finals, and for the third time, they would be stalled there. Against a historically great 73-9 Golden State Warriors team, Durant looked every bit the best player, leading all scorers with 30 PPG, but was unable to win Game 7, setting the stage for one of the biggest heel turns since LeBron in 2010. In the 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil, Durant helped Team USA finish atop the basketball world for his second Olympic gold medal.

2016-17

After falling to the Warriors in a bitterly-contested seven-game series, no one anticipated Durant to sign with Golden State, but he did exactly that. By joining a 73-win team, Durant was like Superman crossing the DC-Marvel line to team up with the Avengers. OKC fans—and players, most notably former sidekick Russell Westbrook—felt spurned. NBA fans were livid at KD “breaking the NBA parity structure.” LeBron James and the Cavs must’ve collectively sighed, knowing that they put everything they had into defeating the Warriors, only to have them add arguably the second-best player in the League to the team. All that aside, Durant was easily absorbed into the Warriors’ winning ways, averaging a 25.1 points, 8.3 rebounds and 4.8 assists. All the attention from his fellow All-Star teammates afforded Durant plenty of open looks and a career-best 54 percent shooting season and allowed him to dabble in rim-protecting, where he posted 1.6 blocks a night. MVP consideration would not come on a stacked squad, but Durant did make the All-NBA Second Team. As expected, the Warriors would easily win the championship, giving Durant his first ring as he was named the Finals MVP.

2017-18

In year two of the Hamptons Five, Durant continued to put up ridiculous numbers on one of the greatest teams ever assembled. He upped his scoring from the previous year, bumping it up to 26.4 PPG as he just missed his second 50/40/90 season with .516 shooting, .419 three-point shooting and .889 free throw shooting. On Jan. 10, 2018, Durant became the second-youngest player (behind LeBron) to reach the 20,000-point plateau. The postseason was another foregone conclusion, the only blip coming in a seven-game affair against the Houston Rockets where Durant averaged 30.4 PPG. The fourth Cavs- Dubs Finals would end in another short five games, and see Durant be named Finals MVP once again.

2018-19

In what could be his final year as a Warrior, Durant is looking to add to his ring count before he possibly leaves for what would definitely be less greener pastures. Speculation has it that he wants to challenge himself to carry a lesser squad to the title. While Durant’s legacy is cemented as one of the greatest to play, many continue to question his rings as a result of him jumping onto the Warriors’ bandwagon. Whether he decides to stay or leave, you can be certain, he’ll be well on his way to joining the 30K club in the next decade.

By Rob Peterson #9