Kevin Durant knows what it means to win at the highest level, but after 17 seasons in the NBA, he’s also learned how to lose. In a recent appearance on the ‘Mind the Game’ podcast, the Rockets forward opened up about how championship talk has overshadowed the beauty of the game, calling out fans and media alike for failing to appreciate the journey.
“The dialogue around the league, the discourse around the league, they don’t appreciate the journey that goes on. Even the ones that don’t work out, you can still see some beauty in the Sacramento Kings that didn’t win the chip, or your Phoenix Suns that didn’t win the championship,” said Durant to Steve Nash and LeBron James. “If you really love the game of basketball, you can pull great things from all of that stuff, and that’s what I tend to do with that Brooklyn situation. We had some fun times and we had some terrible times, but that’s life. That’s what makes you a better human being. But, if I’m being honest, we had better good times than not. Even at times when it was me and four two-way guys. Of course, we wanna win a chip, but it’s these little small moments that I appreciate throughout a year, even though they don’t add up to winning.”
In the NBA, winning is everything in the eyes of the fans. When it comes to discourse, only those who have won at the highest levels are discussed among the all-time great players, and those who fail to win are often overlooked in the NBA’s historical hierarchy of superstars.
In the case of Kevin Durant, he has seen both sides of success. A few years ago, with the Golden State Warriors, he won back-to-back titles in one of the most dominant runs we’ve seen. He’s also a 15x All-Star, 4x scoring leader, and former NBA MVP.
Just a few years later, however, Durant has fallen on dark times. After suffering an Achilles tear in 2019, he joined the Nets with Kyrie Irving (and Steve Nash as head coach) before it ended in a complete disaster. Then, he joined the Phoenix Suns, where things turned downright ugly as the losses were piling up.
Any other player might look at these experiences as failures, but Durant thinks of them as more than that. For him, the failures are just a part of the journey and, oftentimes, a prerequisite for success. Fortunately, as he begins a new chapter with the Rockets next season, Kevin will have another chance to make a title run, but it won’t be the only metric that he uses to measure his success.
In a league that increasingly values results over reality, Durant’s perspective is a reminder that greatness isn’t always defined by rings. It’s built through moments, both triumphant and turbulent, that shape who a player is on and off the court. For Durant, the journey has always mattered more than the narrative. And whether fans choose to see it or not, there’s beauty in the battle—even when the scoreboard doesn’t reflect it.
