Kevin Durant recently took a hilarious jab at Michael Jordan while praising LeBron James’ longevity. Following his comments, fans were not very pleased on social media and called him out. Durant was hence forced to reveal that he did not mean to disrespect Jordan and holds him in a very high regard. So much that he claimed to have spent $1 million on just Jordan’s shoes.
Following this, a basketball page on Instagram resurfaced an old fan-made video that included Michael Jordan’s 2013 interview with Ahmad Rashad, where Jordan indicated what he felt about Kevin Durant. It was also combined with Kobe Bryant’s comments on Durant from his appearance on ‘The Corp With A-Rod and Big Cat’ in 2018.
When Jordan was asked to pick between Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, he got flustered and could not decide.
“Well, I’d say… Kevin Durant,” said Jordan as he hilariously tried to create a way out for himself from that question.
But it indicated that Jordan felt Durant belonged in the same discussion as James and Bryant. Following this, the video cuts to Kobe Bryant’s comments on Durant after he retired, where he claimed he was the hardest to guard.
“Kevin Durant, that was the one I had to retire without having been able to figure out what it is that he— how I can stop him.”
Then the video cuts to Durant’s comments on what he said to Patrick Beverley during their back-and-forth trash-talking in a Warriors game.
“Back and forth with Patrick Beverley, I’m Kevin Durant, you know who I am. Y’all know who I am.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/p:DL7du-sx3pW
While the video is originally a fan-made video to highlight Kevin Durant’s greatness, some fans were still unhappy with Durant and criticized him in the comments section.
Fans also pointed out that in the original interview with Rashad, Jordan in fact corrects himself later and answers the question directly, saying LeBron James is more dominant but Kobe Bryant is a better winner. Here are some other criticisms that Durant got from the fans in the post’s comment section.
“They cut the scenes. MJ was just playing, he was going to take LBJ or Kobe anyway over KD. He can’t win nothing without Steph [Curry].”
“He was clearly joking because he didn’t want to choose between them. Jeez the internet is dumb.”
“Insecure can never be GOAT.”
“Unlimited skill but can’t win a chip by himself. The definition of good for no reason lol”
“People are gonna feed into this knowing he said something different.”
“The Boston Celtics made this man look pedestrian in the playoffs.”
To be fair, James and Bryant are better than Durant in almost every statistical measure except scoring. James has accumulated more points in five more years in the league, sure, but Durant averages better numbers for his career. James has averaged 27.0 points per game for 22 seasons so far, while Durant has averaged 27.2 points per game in 17 seasons played in the NBA.
If Durant plays as long as James has played, then he would potentially surpass his all-time record. However, that would also require him to be consistent for that duration.
At age 36, Durant is only four years younger than James but two seasons behind in parallel (James started playing at 18 while Durant was 20 years old). But James is about to play another season in the NBA, at least. Do you think Durant could play until age 43 to beat James’ record?
