Kevin Durant suffered yet another painful playoff elimination earlier this week against the Denver Nuggets. The Phoenix Suns couldn’t do much to stop Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, and co. and now are out of the competition, set to make some changes in the offseason.
Durant and Devin Booker struggled to take his team to the Western Conference Finals, earning a lot of criticism for disappearing in Game 6. KD was heavily attacked by Shannon Sharpe recently, as the former NFL player-turned-analyst questioned Durant’s ability to carry teams.
“When was he ever?” Sharpe asked. “I mean outside of Golden State. I mean Skip keeps harking on, ‘He took them over the promised land,’ but I’ve seen Golden State get there with him, get there without him. They got there without him before he joined them. They got there without him after he left. … The opportunity for him was to go to Brooklyn. He chose Kyrie [Irving] — no matter what you think of Kyrie, Kevin Durant chose to go link with him, just like he chose to link with Steph (Stephen Curry). … So this notion that you drug Kevin Durant anywhere and they’re an instant title-contending team isn’t true. It was never true. But because of the success he had in Golden State, we forget what Golden State was before he got there.”
https://twitter.com/undisputed/status/1657053107186966528
This is a big claim from Sharpe, and if you think about it, he has a point. KD’s departure from Golden State was seen as him trying to prove to the world that he could win without Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
He went to Brooklyn with Kyrie Irving, where they looked like big favorites to win the 2021 NBA championship, but injuries and the Milwaukee Bucks prevented them from doing so. After that season, Durant and the Nets weren’t the same, and their experiment ended at this year’s trade deadline.
With Phoenix, he also carried big expectations, but the team succumbed to the Nuggets, who played much better basketball and included the entire team and didn’t rely on their two best players.
Kevin Durant Struggled To Get Past The Denver Nuggets In The West Semis
This was the case with the Suns, who lost Chris Paul to an injury and then only had Kevin Durant and Devin Booker for showing. Deandre Ayton played terribly, showing a lack of effort and intensity on the court.
Now, the Suns will have an entertaining offseason, as they start making changes to the team. Monty Williams isn’t longer their head coach, and reports suggest they will part ways with Chris Paul and Deandre Ayton soon too.
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