5 takeaways from the 2017 NBA Finals
3. KD and LeBron: A changing of the guard
After Game 3, when the Golden State Warriors had a comfortable 3-0 series lead and the world had Kevin Durant’s vicious pull-up three-pointer over LeBron James as its signature moment to point to, there was an implied changing of the guard.
LeBron James has been the best player in the NBA for more than a decade, but ever since his first Finals appearance in 2012, his first MVP award in 2014 and now his first Finals appearance with the Warriors, Kevin Durant has always been his close second.
With that Game 3 dagger over the King, KD submitted the play we’ll look back on as the moment the torch was officially passed.
https://twitter.com/NBA/status/872660773578973186
Now, to clarify, LeBron James is still the best individual basketball player on the planet. He may not be winning MVP Awards anymore because he’s not in high gear for the regular season, but if you swapped Kevin Durant and King James in this series, the Warriors probably would’ve won in four even more lopsided games.
You’d also have a hard time convincing people that Kevin Durant is now the greatest player on earth when he’s flanked by two-time MVP Stephen Curry and All-NBAers like Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
However, basketball is not played in a vacuum. It’s a team game, featuring two ends of the court, and fit within the overall team concept matters. In Cleveland, LeBron is the system. In Golden State, Kevin Durant is a lethal cog in an operational Death Star. That difference may make him more formidable than a soon-to-be 33-year-old LeBron James.
It’s slightly unfair to frame the equation that way, and people will continue to downplay KD’s game simply because of his superstar teammates. But the simple truth of the matter is the Warriors needed Kevin Durant to win this series, and he delivered on every account.
After being ridiculed for joining the team that knocked him out of the playoffs, Durant silenced every critic in the Finals. He won Finals MVP honors, averaging 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.6 blocks and 1.0 steals per game on .556/.474/.927 shooting splits.
Though LeBron averaged a 33-12-10 triple-double for the Finals on .564/.387/.649 shooting splits, until Cleveland bounced back with a Game 4 win to avoid the sweep, the general consensus was that KD was slightly outplaying the King. Game 5 reaffirmed that opinion.
Again, context matters here. Defenses have to pick their poison with the Warriors, and oftentimes that makes life easier on Kevin Durant than is really fair considering his already formidable skill set.
But that fit with this Warriors team also matters in this discussion, and it wasn’t like Durant was feasting on wide open looks in this series. Many of the shots he was making, especially down the stretch in Game 5, were tough, contested looks. He entered another zone, seizing the moment in the only way that’d be acceptable for his harshest critics after joining a super-team.
The Dubs make Kevin Durant more dangerous, and vice versa. This Golden State juggernaut isn’t going anywhere, and could easily ensure that LeBron James — by all rights a top-five player of all time — never wins a fourth ring.
According to ESPN Stats & Info, Durant joined Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan, Rick Barry and Elgin Baylor as the only players to score at least 30 points in every game of a Finals series. According to NBA.com/stats, his 176 points were the second-most in any five-game Finals series, trailing only Allen Iverson (178 points in 2001).
The fact that Durant has already become the face of the LeBron resistance movement matters. The Game 3 dagger over the King serving as that signature moment matters. The Finals MVP Award, the defending LeBron for most of the series and the way he put up several huge baskets against him to avenge that 2012 Finals defeat? All of it matters.
In a vacuum, LeBron James is still the best player on the planet. But considering how dangerous and perfect Kevin Durant has become on both ends of the floor with this Warriors team, we are experiencing a torch being passed nonetheless.