After Kevin Durant returned from an ACL injury, the debate of who’s the best player in the NBA between him and LeBron James was brought back to life. The Brooklyn Nets superstar had a deeper playoff run than the King but still couldn’t get past the second round of the postseason.
Regardless, that was enough to spark this debate again, with fans putting the two superstars against each other. That’s why All Iconic Sports created a graphic showing the differences between James and Durant in crunch time. This Instagram site collected data from Basketball-Reference and came up with an interesting image.
Durant averages 00.0% at the buzzer, missing all his four attempts. On the other hand, LeBron has shot for 55.6%, making 5 of his 9 attempts. James also has the advantage in the last 3 and 48 seconds of games. If that’s not enough, it’s the same case for the last minute and two minutes.
LBJ has a considerable advantage over KD in this item, but both players showed this season that they can lift their squads in clutch moments. Although Durant air-balled a game-winning 3-pointer against the Milwaukee Bucks in Game 7 of the East semis, Durantula demonstrated that he still got it.
Bron did it, too, especially in the play-in tournament. He sank an incredible game-winning 3-pointer to beat the Golden State Warriors at Staples Center.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo_hCv70P38
However, when we consider all their performances in the playoffs, there’s a clear winner, and that’s James, one of the most clutch players of all time.
We couldn’t see these two going at it in the Finals this season, but maybe next one we’ll get our wish granted, and they can settle this debate once and for all.
