It was pretty clear that Kevin Durant was a one-of-a-kind talent when he made it to the league as the 2nd overall pick of the 2007 Draft.
The Seattle Supersonics unleashed their superstar rookie right out of the gate and he didn’t disappoint, averaging 20.3 points per game on 43% from the floor. He was still raw, especially as a shooter but the upside was clearly there.
Fast-forward to the 2009-10 season and Kevin Durant was already the best scorer in the world. He became the youngest Scoring Champion in NBA history at just 21 years and 197 days thanks to his roughly 2,472 points that season, taking down the previous record owned by Max Zaslofsky of the Chicago Stags (21 ppg at 22 years and 105 days).
Durant averaged 30.8 points per game on 47.6/36.5/90.0% shooting splits, an effective field goal percentage of 51.4% and a true shooting percentage of 60.7%. It was just his third season in the league.
But perhaps the most impressive part of Durant’s impressive scoring run was the fact that he was going toe-to-toe with prime Kobe Bryant, prime Carmelo Anthony, and prime LeBron James and he still beat all of them for the Scoring title.
Kobe averaged 27.0 points per game (1,970 total) through 73 games, Carmelo averaged 28.3 points per game (1,943 total) in 69 caps, and LeBron James averaged 29.7 points per game (2,258 total) in 76 appearances.
Durant would end up leading the league in points per game two more straight years with 27.7 and 28.0 points per game respectively. He averaged 28.1 the following season but lost to Carmelo Anthony (28.7) and then dominated again the following season with a career-high 32.0 points per game.
It’s unlikely that Durant is ever going to match Michael Jordan’s 10 Scoring titles record but he can at least try and tie Wilt Chamberlain (7) for the second most. What’s clear is that he’s one of the most versatile and unstoppable scorers in the history of the game.
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