Kevin Durant: Still The Best In The West (And It Isn’t Even Close)

Who knew broken bones could also erase memories? “Sometimes you gotta remind people what you do. They tend to forget,” Kevin Durant told ESPN in reference to being motivated by missing most of the season along with the Oklahoma City Thunder missing the playoffs.

While the world watched as 2014-15 MVP Stephen Curry dueled with consensus-best-player-in-the-world LeBron James, Durant stewed. Though he will probably never admit it, Kevin Durant resented every moment of coverage that left he, Russell Westbrook and the rest of the Thunder with a reminder of their failed season.

ALSO ON HOOPSHABIT: The NBA’s 50 Greatest Players of All-Time

As he recovers from a debilitating foot injury and several surgeries, we wait with baited breath for KD to showcase his talents once more. Until then, however, it’s on us to remind the world what he can do. And it’s nothing short of incredible.

Durant is the most effective scorer in the NBA, a true leader, superstar and transcendent talent. For starters, his 6-foot-10 frame and 7-foot-6 wingspan leave little to be desired. He can effectively play both the small forward and power forward spot, taking advantage of his size and speed mismatch, respectively, at each position.

More than anything, Durant’s potency as a complete scoring option (four scoring titles to his name and a career average of 27.3 points per game) stems from his incredible shooting ability:

"View post on imgur.com"

Shots like this one are nothing but routine for Durant, who hit stepback threes at a 67 percent (!) clip during his MVP season, per NBA.com. Granted, the sample size was just nine attempts, but the point remains: Durant hits incredibly difficult shots, hitting all ranges of stepbacks at an impressive 50-percent rate.

And let’s not forget his ability to pull up from anywhere with his incredible length:

"View post on imgur.com"

KD’s range and ability to get off nearly any shot aren’t just because of his length; he’s also got a deadly arsenal of one-on-one moves.

More from Oklahoma City Thunder

• 3 Steps for Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to enter the MVP race next season
• 5 NBA teams on the rise that will surprise everyone in 2023-24
• 5 players who will challenge Victor Wembanyama for Rookie of the Year
• What does Oklahoma City plan to do with an abundance of picks?
• Thunder Summer League: Notes from Holmgren’s chaotic yet magical play

Notice in that clip, that little shimmy Durant does — faking as though he’s about to drive in ever so slightly. Along with impeccable footwork, this move fakes his defender into thinking Durant’s angling to beat him off the dribble, especially with the game tied at 98. When Metta World Peace (formerly Ron Artest and now, Panda’s Friend) takes steps backwards disproportionate to the steps Durant takes forward, he’s already been beat. All Durant has to do is rise up and drain a practice three; the outstretched arm of World Peace is too little, too late.

This sequence is nothing but routine for Durant, who hit 28 out of 52 pull-up threes during his MVP campaign, good for a blistering 54-percent conversion rate.

But it’s not just Durant’s shot making that sets him apart from the rest of the league; it’s his ability to make big time plays. Hitting a game-winner in the playoffs is no rarity for the former MVP. Against Shawn Marion and the Mavericks in the playoffs, Durant made this absurdly difficult shot with Marion draped all over him to seal the game.

"View post on imgur.com"

Just from a few plays, it’s already obvious that Durant hits two checkmarks on the “generational superstar” list: shooting and the ever-so talked about clutch gene. And these plays are from three years ago; Durant has only gotten better since.

Though the sample size was admittedly smaller, Durant’s shooting numbers are even more impressive for the 2014-15 season, hitting 62 percent of his pull-up jumpers and 67 percent of them from beyond the three-point line.

It’s not just jumpshooting in all forms that KD excels at, as he is one of the best finishers at the rim in the game, if not the best. Now, LeBron James hits with incredible efficiency — 76 percent over the last two seasons — and incredible volume- 34 percent of his total shot attempts are within three feet — but Durant finishes right up there with LeBron when he does choose to attack the rim: 80 percent conversion on 21 percent volume.

LeBron’s sheer strength will always trump Durant’s, but KD is an extremely underrated finisher, and despite his wiry frame, he takes contact and finishes strong:

"View post on imgur.com"

Durant just put the 6-foot-11 Marcin Gortat A.K.A. The Polish Hammer on a nasty poster and barely flinched. Say what you will about his frame; Kevin Durant is one strong dude.

Here’s this vicious dunk in slow-mo for good measure.

"View post on imgur.com"

So we’ve seen what Durant can do offensively, but here’s a quick summary of his past two seasons:

Averages of 30.4 points, 7.2 rebounds, 5.2 assists and about a steal and a block per game on shooting splits of 50 percent from the floor, 39 percent from three and 87 percent from the free throw line — good for an otherworldly 63.4 true shooting percentage (a measure of how efficiently a player scores).

In this time, Durant also posted an impressive box plus/minus of 8.2 (a measure of how many more points a player adds a game relative to a replacement player). For reference, 8.2 is nothing short of amazing, tied with Lebron for the league leader over the past two seasons.

Furthermore, it’s also worth noting that Durant is a good defender. He’s not a huge game-changer, but someone who comes up with timely stops and plays both pick-and-roll and help defense fairly well. Box plus/minus is broken down into its offensive and defensive components, and Durant’s only negative season the last four years came last year while he was nursing an his injured foot.

It is without argument that both statistically and via the eye test, Durant is still very much a dominating offensive force; just take a look at what he did against the NBA champion Golden State Warriors and their top ranked defense last season in one half:

Scoring 30 points in just 18:33 of game time on 10-for-13 shooting (77 percent) absolutely confirms Durant’s place as the premier scoring threat in today’s NBA. But he’s also so much more than that.

KD is a definitive leader. He is also the definitive second best player in the NBA, and it really isn’t close — not yet, at least. What is close, however, is the gap between LeBron and Durant. On one hand, you have The King, the Chosen One and the NBA’s global icon, aging into his 30s as he hopes to bring Cleveland its first professional sports title in over 50 years after winning two in Miami.

On the other, you have Kevin Durant, Durantula and the best scorer this league has seen since Kobe Bryant, still gunning for his first ring and another Finals appearance (the first since Durant was just 23). Along with Russell Westbrook, a reloaded roster and a hopeful new coach in Billy Donovan, this could and should be Durant’s year. Coming off injury, defending his 2013-14 MVP title in the loaded Western Conference — the narrative is just too perfect. Almost too perfect.

It is one that we need to take with caution, since Durant’s foot injury is potentially career altering.

Of the several players in NBA history to undergo Durant’s surgery, only Zydrunas Ilgauskas came back and produced at the same level or, in the case of what we hope for Durant, even higher.

This upcoming season, I think I speak for all NBA fans when I say that I hope Durant is healthy. For too long we’ve watched LeBron, for lack of a better word, clown the rest of the NBA. Sure, his Cavs fell short of the title, but he did everything he could, and largely remained unchallenged as the league’s best player despite breakout seasons from Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Anthony Davis.

While many pundits are ready to crown Davis basketball’s next “best player in the world” once LeBron ages past his prime, Durant may very well have something to say about that. In 2014, LeBron and KD seemed like the NBA’s 1a and 1b, the closest the discussion of “best player in the world” had been since Kobe Bryant and LeBron arguments filled social media six years ago. And Durant outright won last season’s MVP award, wrestling it away from LeBron and his stellar play on an often injured Miami Heat team.

Live Feed

Valley of the Suns

Without a doubt, KD has the potential to go down as the greatest scorer in NBA history. And no, that’s not a typo. No player has ever had Durant’s skillset with his size, not even Michael Jordan himself.

It all hinges on a foot. If Durant is healthy, the Thunder are arguably the best team in the NBA. If he isn’t, we must rewrite the narrative. For the past two seasons, we have imagined Durant taking the torch from LeBron, just as LeBron took it from Kobe, just as Kobe took it from Shaquille O’Neal and so on.

And even though Steph Curry and the Warriors toppled Lebron, something was missing; someone was missing. Without Durant healthy and playing at his peak, the Western Conference just isn’t the same.

Just as the East’s is Lebron’s, the West really is Kevin Durant’s kingdom for the taking. The scariest thing, though, is he doesn’t believe it. And he won’t, not until he has a ring of his own. But that’s the great thing about the NBA, it won’t be given to him. He, and the rest of the Oklahoma City Thunder, will have to take it. He will have to muster career performances, create iconic moments and finally become what we’ve hoped he could be.

This is Kevin Durant we’re talking about, though, the youngest scoring champion in NBA history and, for all intents and purposes, the second best basketball player in the world. He’s on a mission. He’s done watching from the sidelines, he’s done cheerleading instead of playing and most importantly, he’s done being second.

It won’t be easy, and the performances demanded of him night-in-and-night-out throughout the season will be loaded with unreasonably high expectations that he can’t possibly meet. But that’s what makes him KD, and everyone else, well, everyone else. And I’m sure he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next: Milwaukee Bucks: Grading The Offseason

More from Hoops Habit

• The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
• 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
• Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
• Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
• Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout