Kevin Durant recently appeared on LeBron James‘ podcast “Mind The Game,” which is now co-hosted by Durant’s former head coach, Steve Nash. In the second part of the podcast episode, Durant and Nash dive deeper into why their time together at the Nets did not end well.
Durant: “We had this conversation in Portland, I think, right before a game, and I’m like, who am I spending my next five years with? I had just signed that deal. You had just signed a deal. But I feel like we were secure, but everything else around us was going to sh**. Not in a bad way. We’ve got GMs going to other teams. We’ve got coaches going to other teams. We’ve got players forcing trades. We’ve brought in Ben Simmons. He hurt his back. Like, it was just so much bulls*** around us.”
Durant: “I feel like we (Durant and Nash) were locked in on the same page and understood like well we were trying to do something special here, but I felt like your hands were tied a lot because you had to, as a coach, you got to deal with so much.”
Durant: “I didn’t think we got the full Steve Nash like I wanted, like you probably wanted. I just felt like it was just too much too many distractions in a way, and you know you can’t win that way and but I felt like we had great intentions, though. I felt like we cared enough. I felt like every day we were trying to push towards winning the chip. It was it was a great vibe in there. It was some of the best times that first year. That’s why I signed that deal that first year, man. Most fun ball I’ve had. Some of the most fun ball I’ve played my whole life. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed Brooklyn a lot. I love playing for Brooklyn, but it’s just so much stuff happened around the guys who were committed to the situation. It felt like we were committed, but only everybody else wasn’t. It just was weird.”
Nash: “Sometimes I feel like I let you guys down in a way, then I think about everything that happened. We had a three-star roster—played 16 games together.”
Durant: “But we balled out every game we played together.”
Nash: “You could go down the list and add all these things and and for me, I end up feeling like I’m making excuses. Reality is, from my perspective, I feel a little bit like I let everyone down, but then I realized there was so much on me, and I just wish I had more of a chance to develop as a coach.“
Following the podcast episode, LeBron James also poked fun at the duo with a reference to their alleged beef in 2022 that led to Durant reportedly giving the Nets front office an ultimatum to decide between him and Nash. James made sure to subtly reference their fight while the trio struggled to decide a pose for their picture together.
“Y’all still fighting?” said James when he saw the duo struggle to decide a pose. When the duo realized the reference, they both laughed loudly.
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What Does This Mean For Kevin Durant’s Legacy?
One of the biggest asterisks in Kevin Durant’s NBA career has been winning an NBA championship with a team that was built around him. As prolific a scorer as he has been in his career, he only won two championships when he joined a team that had already won one without him.
Following his back-to-back championships with the Warriors and his 2019 Achilles injury, his first attempt to build a championship-contending team around him was with the Nets. In his time with the Nets, he averaged 29.0 points, 7.1 rebounds, and 5.8 assists over three seasons in which he sat out one whole season due to his Achilles injury.
He joined forces with Kyrie Irving and eventually brought James Harden on board to form their superteam while being coached by Steve Nash. However, that team only managed to play 16 games together before the COVID vaccination guidelines sidelined Irving, and Harden eventually got traded to the 76ers for Ben Simmons. Following that even Durant asked for a trade and joined the Suns. And that was it, the superteam was over before it even began.
Now, following two failed superteams in the Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns, Durant has been traded to the Rockets. While the team was not originally built around him, he is the superstar on the roster expected to lead the young core to a championship.
If he wins a championship with the Rockets, do you think it will redefine the way the NBA world looks at Durant? Or is he past that stage in his career where he can lead a team to a championship without multiple All-Star players on his roster? Let us know what you think in the comments section.
