(Translator's note: The Athletic journalist Anthony Slater, the content of this article does not represent the translator's views.) The data in this article is as of February 3, 2022 Beijing time)
Welcome to the NBA 75, The Athletic's one-by-one inventory of NBA's 75 biggest stars to mark the league's 75th anniversary. We will announce each weekday a player of all time selected by The Athletic's NBA Working Group.
Kevin Durant wasn't in the mood to be calculating before the game. In fact, he only needs 19 points to average 30 points per game that season. But he made a simpler calculation in his head. If he starts the game with an average of 30 points per game and scores 30 points in the game, it is impossible to fall below 30.
"I just want to get 30 points," Durant told The Athletic in 2018. "I don't want to score 25 points, and then I look back at the end of the game and realize that I'm 0.1 points below the 30 points per game."
It was April 2010, the finale of Durant's third NBA season. The young Oklahoma City Thunder team he led has locked in the No. 8 seed and has no way to improve. And LeBron James, who was second only to Durant in scoring that season, chose to take a break on the final night of the regular season. As a result, the scoring champion has been locked up and the team's seed pick has been determined. Being able to achieve an average of 30 points per game is the only good thing left.
Durant scored his 19th point in aerial relay at the end of the first half, and has already calculated an average of 30 points per game. But that wasn't his preferred way to end that brilliant scoring season. He was hungry for 30 points and scored 29 when there were less than three minutes left in the game.
Durant was still early in his career. He has not yet become a master of efficiency, not yet polished into an offensive weapon. Now he's 13th in The Athletic's Big 75, and of course he has plenty of time to climb higher.
Re-watch the recording. He was more immature than the 2022 version of Durant, but the current Brooklyn-based Durant still averages nearly 30 points per game. The way he operated back then was not as patient as he is now, and he was more of a desire. Durant wanted those 30 points, so he rushed up and took the ball from point guard Eric Meno, waved for Sergey Ibaka's cover, and then rushed into the three-point line under Rudy Guy's long arm.
Durant's foot is on the three-point line. His quick dribbling wasn't as compact as it was later. His skill pack isn't perfect either. But that's okay. The arsenal could be exercised, but by then the killing mentality had been turned on.
Durant was only 21 years old at the time. He became the youngest leading scorer in league history. General Manager Sam Presti and coach Scott Brooks deliberately decided to empower him. Durant played 82 games that season, averaging 39.5 minutes per game. He made 1,668 baskets. In the 12 seasons since, only three players have shot that many times in a single season — Russell Westbrook in 2016-17, James Harden in 2018-19 and Durant in 2013-14. And these three people once played together for the talented Thunder team.
"I grew up in a place where I scored more on the basketball court than anything else," Durant said in a long conversation four years ago. "Everyone around me wants to be a scorer. We admire and admire players who can score points like chopping a melon. So when I got home after that series (2010 against the Lakers), my friends and family were all talking about me averaging 30 points per game and being crowned the top scorer.
"It made me feel like I was finally doing it, I was finally showing people what I could do. This is an incredible boost in confidence. ”
The painful playoff finale and bitter 2016 breakup made Durant's Thunder career tortuous. While the wounds haven't fully healed yet — if you talk to the people who know best — there's a growing sense that the relationship between this team, the city and the best player in team history is slowly getting back on track, and all durant's efforts there will eventually be recognized.
Oklahoma City insiders point out that Durant's influence will need to be fully understood through a more in-depth study of the region. In short: Seattle chose Durant. He won Rookie of the Year as a supersonic player. In a controversial situation, the team moved to OKC before the start of his second season. In 2008, when the economy was uncertain, Durant came to the state. The city has attracted an NBA team in hopes of elevating the city to a mid-tier market with growth potential.
"This is a big step forward," former Mayor Mick-Konette once said. "If you go from having nothing to having a major league team, it's a huge leap forward. If you go from three to four, I don't think that compares to going from zero to one. Other markets lose or get a team, and it only affects fans of the sport. But if we get a team, it affects everyone. We immediately made a leap forward in people's perceptions. ”
Durant exploded into a superstar early on, which put everything on the fast track. He gained worldwide recognition and brought OKC's city logo into the mainstream. Locals often tell the story of seeing a stranger's face touched by their hometown when traveling abroad: "Oh yeah. Kevin Durant. ”
Durant, who was inducted into the state's Hall of Fame in 2015, mentioned an abandoned sight of downtown when he first arrived. During his eight years in office, the city grew new, a revitalization that continues to this day and is still associated with the Durant era, which injected electricity and a lot of money into the area.
The Thunder have never won a championship. This is still a sore spot. Those missed arms still haunt everyone. What if Patrick Beverley didn't hit Westbrook's knee in the 2013 playoffs? What if Ibaka stays healthy in the 2014 Divisional Finals? What if Durant didn't miss the 2015 playoffs with a foot injury? What if Klay Thompson didn't have a Fo-ray in that infamous G6? What if they didn't trade Harden?
History has been written. Durant's seasons will not be repeated. But even if it doesn't end up holding the cup — which led to a bickering schism — it shouldn't erase the successes Durant experienced in Oklahoma City. These successes cannot be compared in words, but the Thunder part of his career has always felt like a forgotten part, even becoming a taboo topic.
Before the start of his seventh NBA season, Durant had already won three leading scoring titles and scored 12,258 points — a 4,479-point higher than the league's all-time leading scorer Karim Abdul-Jabbar before he turned 25.
"He's 7 feet tall, but he can run around like a number two," The Elder Rivers said at the time. "He can have the ball, he can dribble the ball away from the defence, he can carry his back, he can pull dry. You can't trap him because he's taller than you. I don't think there's a player any harder to deal with in all my years of coaching and playing. You even feel like trying to limit him is a waste of time. ”
Durant then burst out to play his best scoring season, averaging 32 points per game in 2013-14 and being named NBA MVP. That added a fourth scoring champion and another 2,593 points to his career. He scored 14,851 points four times before his 26th birthday, which also gave him hope to match Abdul-Jabbar.
"It depends on a lot of factors beyond his control," Abdul-Jabbar said in 2018. "Whether he is injured or not, what are the offensive tactics... I was lucky with the Milwaukee Bucks and Lakers who needed me to score on the first day I got there, and I played so many seasons. ”
If you ask anyone at the Golden State Warriors about durant's impressions of those three seasons, the first thing they'll mention is work ethic — he's going through boring but focused shooting training every day with the intensity of the game, whether he's in a scoring spree, a deep slump, or a 42-minute play the night before, or just finished working out in the gym in the offseason.
These were all raised in Oklahoma City, and the pair of Durant in their early 20s was the ideal professional environment. It was a protected, small-ball city basketball cocoon where he could hone his days with talented, motivated young cores, away from distractions. He's thrown himself into the job, and he'll run and climb mountains in the 100-degree (37.8 degrees Celsius) summer in Oklahoma, rather than venturing around elsewhere during the offseason.
Presti recently talked about Durant's perception of loyalty to the process at such a young age, and he rarely recognizes that even if the results are not immediate, the tedious work is worth it. He was in his early 20s with the Thunder's training coach to hone his body, strengthen his core against strong defenders, and build enough confrontation to seek foul play.
Durant joined the breakaway early in his career. In his third season, he averaged 10.2 free throws per game.
He saw Dirk Nowitzki's Golden Rooster Independence at the time, and given his height and technical characteristics, he spent quite a long time practicing until he could take the move out of his arsenal at any time.
Once he has better core strength and balance, and understands how to create space and observe defenders, he becomes a nightmare. Because, how can you stop a well-trained, smooth-moving, and highly ejaculate 7-foot long man?
Durant's first major injury occurred in the 2014-15 season. He suffered a Jones fracture in his foot and endured the complications that followed. And he also had the second of three surgeries because of a bent screw, which deprived him of an entire season at his peak.
The tearing of the Achilles tendon in the 2019 NBA Finals took away a full season. The pandemic, combined with hamstring problems and Brooklyn's cautious approach, has allowed him to play only 35 games last season. He had a sprained internal collateral ligament (MCL) in his first season with the Warriors, which led to his absence for more than a month at the time, and he is currently absent from the team because of an MCL sprain.
From a historical point of view, this influenced his quest for those great records. His pace slowed. He currently has 24,936 points. That's a far cry from Karim's 38,387 points, but if luck was good, healthy and lasting, the record was once accessible to Durant.
But fortunately, Durant has responded well after each major injury — he's thrown himself into the tedious daily recovery process — and unsurprisingly, there will be several more prolific seasons ahead. In 36 games this season, he's averaged a league-high 29.3 points per game. That makes the 5,064 points needed to reach 30,000 points a reasonable target for him, while the 30,000 club includes only eight players.
"That's the number that scorers dream of: 30,000 points," Durant said.
"Only thirty thousand?" Are you kidding me? Jerry West said. I would be shocked if he didn't reach 30,000, or didn't far exceed 30,000. Very shocked. ”
The conversation was cited in 2018, just before Durant became the fifth player in history to achieve 20,000 points before his 30th birthday, and he also joined Michael Jordan, Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant and James. Very decent list.
Durant is more than just a scorer. He left the Thunder for the Warriors, not just to chase the championship, but also to push the limits and make up for his weaknesses in the game. With the Warriors, he reached a different level on the defensive end, growing into a replaceable flank that could defend both the outside and the basket. He is ranked 99th all-time with 1,020 blocks. His first two seasons with the Warriors were his best two as a blocker.
Durant won two championships, but he was the extra queen on the chessboard of an ongoing dynasty. On what some consider the greatest team in league history, he won the NBA Finals MVP twice. In key moments in the playoffs, whenever the Warriors needed his singles, he always contributed. Durant averaged 30.3 points per game in the NBA Finals, the fourth-highest score in history.
One of many people's favorite thing is that Durant's game is always evolving — and that's on full display in Brooklyn, where he nearly led the Nets to the eventual champion Bucks, and even though Harden limped without Kyrie Irving — he still has an old-school way of scoring despite his new-age toolkit. Durant is a career 38 percent three-point shooter who can't be covered, but his game hasn't changed with the age of analytics.
Surprisingly, his three-point shot remained steady. Here's what Durant averaged from 2010-11 (his fourth season) to his season (his 14th season): 5.3, 5.2, 4.1, 6.1, 5.9, 6.7, 5.0, 6.1, 5.0, 5.4, 5.0. yes. Durant has made fewer three-point shots in the 2021-22 season than he did a decade ago.
"I just know that mid-range is part of the way I play, and that's what I was taught as a kid to shoot in mid-range," Durant said in that conversation in 2018. "It's an easier shot. You don't want to kill like a bulldozer to the basket every time. In high-intensity competitions, this is hard to do. Because you lose a lot of energy.
"I mean, you need to have an anchor in your own game. The way the game is played has indeed changed. When I grew up watching those stars play, it was still a game of the inside giants. The score in the finals was 82-80. And when I got into the league, it turned into a fast-paced game. But I always wanted to be that anchor in the way I played. I want to stick to what I do and leave my mark on the race in this way.
"I can shoot three points. I also like to shoot three-pointers. But I don't have to vote. I love looking for mid-range shots and easier shots and layups. That's what allowed me to play in the fourth quarter; I felt like if I focused on picking the best shots throughout the game, I could save more energy. You have to change with the times, but you can still be yourself. ”
Durant used this method to become one of the greatest players of all time, with some of his peers seeing him as the hardest-to-defend scorer in history. During the 2021 Olympics, he became the all-time scoring champion for team Usa and won his third gold medal.
Here's part of what we talked about in 2018 as he was about to enter the 20,000-point club:
Anthony Slater: Next week you're going to reach 20,000 points. How many more points can you score?
DURANT: I don't care. frankly. I used to want to be the greatest scorer ever. But my technique speaks for itself. You just have to watch the game. You can't just look at my stats and say I'm the best scorer. You should observe and figure out what I do to score points efficiently and win at the same time. I'm more interested in that.
But I've been playing for a long time and hopefully I can keep it up. Let's see what happens in the end. I don't want to put a ceiling on it. I just want people to watch my game and see how I've created something that's my own. That's my art form. I just express myself through it. I want you to watch my game and not just focus on my stats.
Anthony Slater: We're going to talk about some data anyway.
Durant: Let's see what happens. That's my point.
Anthony Slater: Jerry West said that if you don't reach 30,000 points, he'll be "shocked."
Durant: I don't know, man. You'll never know, brother. You'll never know. I've been nursing season-reimbursed injuries for a year. Over the past three years... I missed 20 games last year, 10 the year before, maybe 57 the year before? Or 58 games?
So who knows. I went to college for a year. So who knows. It's like... Who knows. Walk and see. ...... I'd rather be like every night like I am now. I'm sure it's going to add up when I'm done in my career.
Anthony Slater: Also, on that transfer [to the Warriors], you gave up some points.
Durant: Yeah, I lose some points every night.
Anthony Slater: That's about 2,000 points.
Durant: But it's worth it. You know what's going on.
Anthony Slater: You said you wanted to play until you were 40. How late do you want to hit? Also, how do you see yourself like Dirk, 37, as a player who only scored 17 points per night?
Durant: I don't know, man. For me, it's hard to say now. I don't want to spend 20 years of my life... Let me put it this way: I don't want the last three or four years of my career to just go after something and not play for love, joy and victory. If I don't accomplish everything I want, I'll let myself go. By then maybe I've been playing for 18 years, and I'll stop there. But I'm not going to sit on the bench for two or three more years for more scoring or accolades.
We'll see exactly what happens, but right now I'm just trying to keep improving every day. In terms of data, it's cool to look at where I am at the end of my career.
Anthony Slater: You hate to be called a scorer. This is one of the things you hate the most. But you must be happy to know one thing: You're one of the best in basketball history, right?
DURANT: Yes. It does mean a lot. You want something that can be remembered. You want people to recognize your technology. I put in the effort and fans all over the world will appreciate the results of my hard work and the knowledge I have gained from scoring over the years.
A lot of people like the way I score. All my friends said, "Dude, you scored 50 tonight?" I thought, "Really? Do you think I can get 50 points as long as I want? But I'm grateful for my standards. I've always worked hard to be a world-class scorer. The purpose of the game is to put the ball into the basket.
Durant renewed his contract with Brooklyn, which allowed him to stay there for four more seasons, and then his career was extended into the summer of 2026. He will be 37 years old. If he stays healthy, his stats performance should put him in the top 10 discussions in history. But even if he retires now, he has cemented his position as a legend.
By Anthony Slater
Compile: Nebula