Kevin Durant sparked fierce conversations this week after telling reporters that there’s no reason he should not be included in conversations with LeBron James and Michael Jordan as the greatest basketball player of all time. After posing the question to reporters, he defended his take on social media, where he recently shut down one fan who said that “there are rules to the game” when it comes to deciding the best of the best.
“The part you’re missing is that there are no rules to the game,” replied Durant to a disgruntled X user.
The part you’re missing is that there are no rules to the game…
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) January 24, 2024
The response is actually just one of several efforts by Durant to defend his legacy. On Tuesday, for example, he responded to a fan who tried to argue that his decision to join the Warriors in 2019 disqualifies him from the conversation. He has also clapped back against fans who compared his move in 2019 to LeBron joining the Celtics.
“I can sit at any table at any time and talk basketball comfortably with anybody that has played the game but Jacob the clipper said I couldn’t. Nobody knows u bro, move around,” wrote Durant in a tweet.
This type of activity is hardly anything new for Durant, but he’s finding it harder and harder to defend himself from the hate as he gets further away from those championships with the Warriors. Unless he’s able to capture at least one more title, there will always be some doubt about his ability to lead his own team.
Is Durant The GOAT?
As a former MVP, 2x champion, 13x All-Star, 10x All-NBA player, and 4x scoring leader, there is no question that Kevin Durant is a future NBA Hall of Famer. In fact, based on what he’s accomplished over 15+ seasons in the league, many consider Durant to be among the best players of the modern generation. But when it comes to the GOAT debate, Durant still has a ways to go before he can match up with LeBron James or Michael Jordan, who have more MVPs, more championships, and who had an overall more dominant run in the NBA.
Winning back-to-back titles in 2017 and 2018 certainly helped Durant cement his legacy as one of the best, but his failure to win a ring on his own team, outside the umbrella of Stephen Curry, still sets him back from reaching the height of his peers. Outside of his three-year stint with Steph, Durant doesn’t have a whole lot of hardware to his name and he’ll have to change that if he wants to be considered worthy of GOAT status.
The Last Dance
With averages of 29.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 5.6 assists per game on 53.1% shooting, Kevin Durant remains one of the best players in the game. But at 35 years old, the chances are that Durant’s career is closer to the end than the beginning. For that reason, the Phoenix Suns have made it a point to sacrifice all of their assets to prioritize any trade that can help them win right away. The result has been a top-heavy roster for Phoenix that is currently 6th in the West at 25-18.
For his part, Durant has been doing everything to give his team the edge but unless they get some more help from the supporting players, the Suns will struggle to come out of the West. Internally, the hope is that more time together will help to maximize some of the role-players, but health must also be on their side and that just hasn’t been the case so far in the Kevin Durant era.
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