Kevin Durant: The Contradiction

Kevin Durant is one of the best players in the NBA, at times he seems to cruise through games, casually draining the three while being able to make plays for his team-mates. He is one of maybe five players in the NBA who can single-handedly win games for his team in the fourth quarter, no matter the game he has played in the three prior quarters or the way his team has played in that game. KD flips a switch and suddenly the 7ft footer with guard skills destroys double-digit leads in just a few minutes. However, Durant is also insecure and unsure of his own identity, he wants to just fit into the Warriors team-first culture but he also wants to be ‘The Guy’ like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan before him. The personality and player within the thin, skeletal frame is still hidden away and changing like tectonic plates which is why he is quietly one of the most interesting players in the NBA.

My first memories of Kevin Durant were of the quiet, humble gentle giant who existed with the supernova in the land of tornadoes, Oklahoma City. Kevin Durant was drafted by the Sonics and was a building block of the OKC Thunder in 2008, he was ‘The Guy’, the one person who was revered and beloved by every Oklahoma City fan. Durant was Oklahoma’s prodigal son by way of Washington DC and Prince George’s County, Maryland. When I think of Kevin Durant, I think of the silent assassin who would drift around quietly before popping up and scoring off a Westbrook assist. While you notice the brash, fierce drives of Westbrook, Durant’s consistent and reliable scoring would go unnoticed until the box score at the end of the game is checked and he has scored thirty five points with great shooting efficiency.

But there was another aspect of Kevin Durant, that was hidden behind the narratives about Kevin Durant’s dominance, he does not trust his team-mates. Durant in his formative years for the Oklahoma City Thunder became used to playing lots of isolation basketball, Scotty Brooks offence was usually Durant Iso and then Westbrook Iso. Due to the heavy-usage of isolation basketball in which Durant broke down the offence by himself, it became ingrained in his habits to do everything himself, after all he believed that he ‘couldn’t win with those cats’.

Iso basketball is a strange form of the game, it can be beautiful in a devastating way but it can also be ugly as players build brick houses. Durant is one of the best at isolation ball, he is lengthy, fast and strong enough to drive into the lane without being hindered by defenders. In Oklahoma, this was fine in terms of offensive approach as the play-style that was implemented by both Coach Donovan and Scotty Brooks was isolation-based. However, in Golden State it is a completely different story.

Before Durant joined the Warriors, the team played a fast-flowing brand of basketball with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson at the head of the offence. The Warriors would run defenders through numerous hard screens set by Draymond, Bogut or Iguodala which would create the space for Curry or Klay to bomb away from deep. The pass-happy offence meant that the ball moved from player to player in order to find the best look possible, it was a democratic offence and Curry was Nash-like in his ability to find the correct pass at exactly the right time. Since the start of this season, there has been a subtle change in the way that the Warriors play especially during the last stretch of tight games. Before the ball would be passed to Stephen Curry who either shoot the ball or use his gravity from behind the three-point line to stretch defences out which would then create space for Klay or Draymond to work. Now, the ball goes to the ‘Slim Reaper’ and the Warriors allow him to isolate on defenders and make plays.

Kevin Durant is one of the best players in isolation and will often score with high efficiency in these types of situations however this type of play disrupts the rhythm of the other Warriors. A player like Curry or Klay Thompson needs touches in order to play themselves into the game, by keeping the ball in Durant’s hands it means that the ‘Splash Brothers’ can’t get into the rhythm of the game. I would argue that Curry going supernova is the single-most dangerous thing in the NBA. He had such a quick release and confidence to shoot from anywhere on the court that it is basically impossible to defend Curry on the perimeter. Moreover, when Curry gets hot he will drop three or four threes in one go, creating double-digit leads all by himself. Durant’s Isos means that this cannot happen.

Another side-effect of Kevin Durant playing in an isolation situation is that the pace of the game slows down and each possession is even more crucial. Against teams like the Atlanta Hawks or the Phoenix Suns, there is not much consequence to missing shots off isolation plays as neither the Hawks or Suns can score the ball with any great efficiency. However, against a team like the Houston Rockets or Boston Celtics, the Warriors cannot miss any shots at all. The Rockets and Celtics are both more than capable at trading blows with the Warriors and will capitalise on any missed opportunities. In high-pressure stakes, a team cannot miss shots and Durant missing shots becomes more likely as opposing defenders like Ariza or Tucker become more proficient in defending a legit 7ft footer in isolation.

In contrast to this, the Warriors in a pre-Hamptons Five Era would continue to move the ball amongst it’s ‘Death Line-Up’ which meant that it was unpredictable. Opponents cannot gameplan against unpredictability and that provided the Warriors an advantage in late-game situations. Curry may have been the general who often daggered opponents but he used his team-mates more and meant that defences had to take notice of the presence of Draymond Green or Andre Iguodala on the inside, they could not just double Curry. It plainly worked until it met a certain 6'8" Cleveland Forward and they needed an isolation specialist, Kevin Durant.

As a person who watched a little of Kevin Durant, it is clear that despite his desire to be ‘The Guy’ on a championship winning team and the spiritual successor to LeBron James he is not ‘The Guy’. The intangibles required to be the player who can carry a team are not evident within Durant, he has not had a LeBron Game 7 against the Celtics moment or a Jordan against the Jazz moment. When the odds have been stacked against Kevin Durant, he has struggled, case in point was the 2016 Western Conference Finals.

The 2016 Western Conference was a classic series, it was a series that has decided the perennial favourites in the Western Conference for at least the next five years. It was KD/Russ against the ‘Splash Brothers’ and it was clear that Durant struggled with the pressure in the series. It may be disputed now in the present but Durant was the number one option on the team, it was his responsiblity as the foundational piece of the Thunder to lead his squad into the promised land for the first time since 2012. However in the series, Durant had just 53.9% TS which accounts for three-point shooting, free throws and all of other shots taken. In the first half of the series, KD played out of his mind, in Game 2 he scored 29 points on 10 made shots while everybody else around him struggled. In the second half of the series, he seemingly fell off a cliff.

In the infamous Game 6, he shot just 10–31 from the field and 1–8 from three-point land. For a player who is renowned for steady, reliable, efficient scoring it was a shock to see him falter in that manner. He was just different in his demeanour, he seemed to be slightly passive in comparison to the aggressive scorer that he had built his career upon in the past.

From then on, it seems that the Kevin Durant which had been media-coached out of him came out. He joined the Warriors on the 4th July 2016 and seemed to find his tribe. Durant became more vocal and more likely to clap back critics on social media, recently he has complained about ‘blog boys’, NBA bloggers who publish their views on sites like Fanside or SB Nation which promote the view of common fans.

That being said, the change in his personality, the more vocal Kevin Durant also seemed to mirror a change in his style of play. Durant wants to assert himself as the alpha on the Warriors, the go-to option for a team that has Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson on it. As I stated earlier, it has slowed down and affected the flow of the Warriors offence even though he plays so much better unselfishly.

In the first game against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2018 NBA finals, Kevin Durant played more of an isolation style and finished up 8–22 for the game. This was a respectable stat-line but it lacked the usual efficiency that Durant has become known for, in Game 2, his performance was much better because he shared the ball more. Durant did not hold the ball isolating himself onto smaller defenders like JR Smith or George Hill, he instead chose to take shots on the feed from Curry or Draymond to get easy looks. It worked for KD because he bounced back and the Warriors won by nineteen points, a significant victory for a team lacking one of its most versatile players in the form of Andre Iguodala.

But then, it could be said that his desire to play an isolation style of basketball has stemmed from his desire to be ‘The Guy’. ‘The Guy’ is typically the number scoring option and the offence runs through them, on the Warriors it is not Kevin Durant who is ‘The Guy’ but Stephen Curry. Curry has the ability to turn games on its head and seemingly delivers when he has been counted out. Steph Curry turned in a great performance against the Rockets when the criticism was loudest. He scored 7–7 in one quarter and took the game away from the Harden/Paul tandem. The same event happened in Game 2 in which Curry made nine threes from deep and broke Cleveland’s spirit every single time that LeBron was leading a contract.

Another aspect of Kevin Durant that has emerged in his insecurity as a player or a person. Durant has been caught in recent years with burner accounts and seems to be pushing a narrative that he wants the media and fans to believe in. He has said that the pull-up three against LeBron James felt like a ‘passing of the torch’ moment from the one of the greatest players of all time to the 7ft foot forward who plays in the Bay Area. It seems a little contrived, in many cases the spiritual successor conversation is brought around by the fans or the media rather than the player himself.

The other example of Durant’s think-skin is the Twitter burner accounts that he created to defend his free agency decision to join the Warriors and leave the Oklahoma City Thunder. He created a Twitter account to argue that he could not ‘win with those cats’ in reference to the other Thunder staff apart from Westbrook and Billy Donovan. It just strikes me as unusual that a player like Durant who obviously knows that he is brilliant needs to seek a sense of validation from the masses of people on NBA Twitter.

I wouldn’t say that this is a criticism, in many ways the insecurity has driven Durant to become better as a player. He never wants to be criticised again and therefore pushes himself to be better. His special Nike colorway that was released after the Warriors won the 2017 NBA Finals exemplifies this. On the shoes, he had words like ‘Coward’ and ‘Snake’ that was scrawled on the tread of the sneaker. It is obvious that this criticism has become part of him and is his motivating factor.

The downside of this of listening to criticism as closely as Durant does is that it means his play is influenced by the narrative. As soon as he hears his name falling out of the MVP conversation or the best player in the NBA conversation, he will start to play Iso-ball and focus on his own stats which is obviously detrimental to the Warriors. When he plays within Steve Kerr’s system which prioritises making the extra pass and taking the first good shot in an offensive possession, he is unstoppable. A lot of people did not realise this about Game 2 but Kevin Durant shot 10–14 from the field which is something like 70% shooting efficiency against the best team in the league. Kevin Durant just doesn’t seem to realise this when the game is on the line.

As a Thunder fan, my feelings towards Kevin Durant is mixed but it is clear to see from a basketball fan’s perspective that he is unique in both his attitudes and style. If he manages to break his poor habits and embraces his role as the scoring giant on the Warriors, the team will form a dynasty that will be unbeatable and able to withstand the departure of key players like Andre Iguodala or Shaun Livingston who may be free agency losses as the luxury tax becomes greater.