Kevin Durant became the most successful men’s basketball player in Team USA history this summer, becoming the first to win four Gold medals while also becoming the national team’s leading scorer and rebounder. Many are assuming this was the last Olympic run for the 36-year-old forward, but Brian Windhorst revealed that Team USA officials still think Durant is an option for the 2028 roster.
“I will not rule out (Kevin Durant) playing (in 2028). I talked with Team USA officials, they would give him a provisional yes right now.”
Durant going for a fifth Gold medal will solidify his status as the greatest men’s USA basketball player, with no one even coming close to usurping him for that position. It’ll be very tough for him to find a way to play in 2032 as well to equal Diana Tarausi’s record of winning six consecutive Gold medals, but taking a crack at winning his fifth Gold on home soil would be an opportunity that’ll be hard to pass up.
Given what LeBron James did this summer four months away from his 40th birthday, there’s no reason to assume Durant can’t remain a top-tier player by the time the 2028 Olympics roll around. He averaged 13.8 points at the 2024 Games while working through a calf injury.
Kevin Durant Can’t Hide His Thoughts About Retirement
As Durant enters his 18th NBA season at the age of 36, he is naturally thinking about the looming end of his NBA career. He has miles left on his legs given the time he’s had to take off to heal injuries in his career, but every season becomes a greater challenge when you’re playing at that age.
Modern medicine and the example that LeBron is currently setting by making All-NBA teams after spending 20 years in the NBA shows that Durant could do something similar. But the Suns forward candidly revealed that the retirement thought keeps popping into his head from time to time.
“As I get older in the league and the league is getting younger, I tend to think about retirement more. I’m not nonstop thinking about it… But it tends in my mind for sure. I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. I got a lot of interests, I definitely want to stay around the game… I truly just want to hang out and see what happens.”
“We’ve built up a lot over the last 16-17 years that can sustain for a while. I have to get in the room and see what I actually want to do when I’m done playing ball. That’s going to be a huge transition… It’s been close to 30 years of me doing this, where every day was centered around the game of basketball.”
“It hasn’t been no other lifestyle but this, so I want to just have some time and space to really step out of that matrix and figure out who I am as an individual, then step into something…”
Durant averaged 27.1 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 5.0 assists last season in the NBA. He’s ready to make a run at the NBA title with the Suns this season, and if he has to think about retirement, he’ll have to wait a little while longer.
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