Friday, October 15, 2021

Top 100 NBA Players: #16 - Kevin Durant


Kevin Durant

Teams

Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder - 2007-16

Golden State Warriors - 2016-19

Brooklyn Nets - 2019-present


Playoffs

Appearances - 10 (2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2016,2017,2018,2019,2021)

Conference Finals - 6 (2011,2012,2014,2016,2017,2018)

NBA Finals - 4 (2012,2017,2018,2019)

Championships - 2 (2017,2018)


Awards and Honors

Rookie of the Year - 2008

MVP - 1 (2014)

Finals MVP - 2 (2017,2018)

All-NBA First Team - 6 (2010,2011,2012,2013,2014,2016,2018)

All-NBA Second Team - 3 (2010,2011,2016,2017,2019)

All-NBA Third Team - 0 (2021)

*(actual in bold, deserved in italics)


All-Time Ranks

Points Per Game - #5

Free Throw Percentage - #15

Three-Pointers Made - #27

Total Points - #31


League Leads

Total Points (#1-2010,2011,2012,2013,2014, #3-2016, #5-2009)

Points Per Game (#1-2010,2011,2012,2014, #2-2013, #3-2016)

Free Throw Percentage (#1-2013, #3-2016)

Blocks Per Game (#5-2018)

Three-Pointers Made (#3-2012)


As a freshman at Texas, Kevin Durant was named the College Player of the Year, the first freshman ever to win the award, and he won it unanimously, with averages of 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds per game, and he was selected by the Seattle SuperSonics with the #2 overall pick in the NBA Draft.

Durant was named the Rookie of the Year the following season, averaging 20.3 points per game, but the Sonics missed the playoffs in their final year before moving to Oklahoma City. Durant averaged 25.3 points and 6.5 rebounds in his first season in Oklahoma City, a nice improvement over a strong rookie year.

In his third season, Durant became the youngest scoring champ ever, at 21 years old, scoring 30.1 points per game on the season. He also added 7.6 rebounds per game and was named to the All-NBA First Team, and led the Thunder to the playoffs, though that ended in a first-round defeat.

He repeated as scoring champ the next year, and led the Thunder all the way to the Conference Finals, where they fell to the Dallas Mavericks, then followed that up with a 3rd straight scoring title and a trip to the NBA Finals. He was the leading scorer in the Finals that year, with 30.6 points per game, but the Thunder lost to Miami and LeBron James.

He came up just short of a scoring title the next year, coming in second to Carmelo Anthony, but he became the youngest player to ever join the 50-40-90 club, averaging .510 from the field, .416 from three, and a league-leading .905 from the free throw line. He led the Thunder to the top seed in the West, but after Russell Westbrook went down in the first round, Durant was unable to get the Thunder through the second round of the playoffs.

The next year he won the scoring title for the 4th time, with a career high of 32.0 per game, and also averaged 7.4 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game, leading the Thunder to 59 wins and earning himself the MVP award. In the playoffs he was able to lead the Thunder to the Conference Finals for the third time in 4 years, but San Antonio ended their run there.

Durant missed the first 17 games of the next season with an injured foot, then played for 2 weeks before injuring his ankle, missing another 2 weeks, then injured his toe after a month back, before finally being shut down for the season in February to have foot surgery. He averaged 25.4 points per game when he was on the court, but he only appeared in 27 games on the season.

At full health the next season, he bounced back with averages of 28.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 5.0 assists, and was able to lead the Thunder to the Conference Finals for the 4th time. The Thunder took a 3-1 lead on the 73-win Warriors in that series before dropping 3 in a row and losing just short of the Finals again.

After that season, Durant decided to join the Warriors as a free agent, and he and the team both thrived, with Durant averaging 25.1 points, a career-high 8.3 rebounds, and 4.8 assists, before Durant was forced to miss the final 19 games of the season with a bone bruise. He returned for the playoffs, and he and Stephen Curry led the Warriors to the Finals for the third year in a row, and Durant won the Finals MVP after averaging 35.2 points in the 5-game series.

The next season was more of the same. Durant put up great numbers in the regular season before missing the end of the season with a fractured rib, but he returned for the playoffs, and was dominant in leading the Warriors to the Finals again, winning his second straight Finals MVP after averaging 28.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 7.5 assists in a sweep of Cleveland.

Durant was healthy through the next season and put up nearly identical numbers to the year before, but in the second round of the playoffs, he strained his calf, causing him to miss the last game of the series and the entire Conference Finals. He also missed the first 4 games of the NBA Finals, returning in Game 5, where he had a solid start before tearing his Achilles early in the second quarter, ending his season and leading to Golden State losing the Finals to Toronto in 6 games.

Durant left to join the Nets in free agency that summer, and missed his entire first season with Brooklyn while recovering from his injury. He finally appeared on the court for Brooklyn last season, but missed half of the season with various injuries, though he did average 26.9 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 5.6 assists when he played. With the team's other stars injured in the playoffs, Durant was able to get the Nets to the second round before falling to the Bucks in 7 games.

Durant has lost all or most of 3 different season to injury in his career, but when he is playing, he is always one of the best players in the game. He owns 4 scoring titles and 2 Finals MVP awards, along with a regular season MVP, and he has the fifth-highest career scoring average of any player in history. He just turned 33 last month, so he should have several good years left to continue climbing up this list of the greatest players of all time.




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