Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Top 100 NBA Players: #22 - Kevin Durant


Kevin Durant

Kevin Durant is easily the youngest player to be ranked among my top 25, and although he is still only 27 years old, he has done some very impressive things in the early stages of his career.

In his first season in the NBA, playing for the Seattle SuperSonics, Durant won the Rookie of the Year award by averaging 20.3 points per game while starting every single night. It turns out that his rookie season would start to look weak after what he started doing in year two. At only 20 years old, he was one of the top 10 players in the entire league and ranked #5 in scoring at 25.3 points per game, while also increasing his rebounding average from 4.4 to 6.5.

The next season he became the youngest player ever to lead the league in scoring, averaging 30.1 points per game and supplanting Max Zaslofsky as the youngest scoring leader, breaking a record that had stood for 62 years. He was also named to the All-NBA First Team, came in second in the MVP race, and led the Thunder to the playoffs. He also grabbed 7.6 rebounds per game and shot 90% from the free throw line while leading all players in minutes played.

His fourth season was even better somehow. His stats may have slipped slightly in each major category, but he was still one of the top 5 players in the league and led Oklahoma City to the Western Conference Finals as the best player on a very good Thunder team. He led the league in scoring for the second straight season and matched that feat in the playoffs, where he averaged 28.6 over 17 games.

He led the league in scoring again the following season, becoming just the 7th player ever to lead the league in three straight seasons. He established himself as the #2 player in the league, behind only LeBron James, then took the Thunder all the way to the Finals. He raised his scoring average the next season, but ended up behind Carmelo in the scoring race, and the Thunder failed to match their previous playoff success.

His 6th season was easily his best. He led the league in scoring again with a career-high 32 per game to go along with 7.4 rebounds and 5.5 assists, and he took the Thunder back to the Conference Finals. He suffered an unfortunate foot injury that cost him most of the following season, and when he got back, Russell Westbrook had taken over as the best player on the team, though Durant was still one of the top 5 players in the league, and they reached the conference finals yet again.

At this point in his career it's impossible to tell exactly where he'll end up at the end of his career. He has the highest scoring average of any active player, and the third highest average of all time, behind only MJ and Wilt. He has yet to win a championship, and there is only one player ahead of him in these rankings who never won one, but Durant is still young and should have a lot of chances to finish on top. We could be looking at one of the top 10 players of all time by the time his career ends.

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