Brooklyn Nets: The path through the East goes through Kevin Durant

If he comes back healthy, there’s nobody more talented than Kevin Durant. In that case, the path to the NBA Finals will go through the Brooklyn Nets star.

With all the buzz surrounding the Brooklyn Nets coaching search so far this offseason, it’s easy to forget that talent is what wins in the NBA. Coaches deploy and develop that talent, but the best players are ultimately what matters. If he comes back healthy from his ruptured Achilles, Kevin Durant may be the biggest difference-maker in the league.

The last time Durant stepped foot on the basketball court, he had a legitimate argument to be the best player in the world and was no worse than third on any credible list. Alongside Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, KD was nothing short of a cheat code, and thanks to his all-around offensive play and defensive prowess, he was devastating with or without them when he played for the Golden State Warriors and won two championships.

Now he’s in the Eastern Conference with the Brooklyn Nets, and the landscape is very different than when he played in the West. Kawhi Leonard no longer plays for the Toronto Raptors and the ascendant Miami Heat don’t have a star nearly on Durant’s level. If Durant is indeed healthy, only Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks has a claim to the same tier of stardom.

Weird chemistry issues with Kyrie Irving or not (which for our purposes we will assume won’t be an issue, at least until they are), the Brooklyn Nets are going to have a top-two player in the conference, and he might not be No. 2.

We haven’t had the opportunity to see KD play in over 16 months, and in a world where news cycles reset on an almost hourly basis, that’s practically an eternity. It’s de rigueur to be low on the Brooklyn Nets, and that’s as much a result of our impossibly short memories as it is due to legitimate concerns about how the puzzle is going to fit together.

Even if he comes back somewhat diminished, Durant was so far ahead of the rest of the pack that he should still be one of the best players in the league. His elite length and technique work in his favor so that a reduction in athleticism shouldn’t be a critical flaw, and he’s still comfortably among the very best in the league.

In his three-year run with the Golden State Warriors, he won two championships and while sharing the floor with some of the most potent offensive players in the NBA, he scored 25.8 points per game on lethal shooting splits of .524/.384/.883.

Durant’s worst-case scenario in his return is still spectacular, and it could be enough to give the Brookly Nets a shot at getting into the top tier of the Eastern Conference. Even if they can’t get there themselves, Durant and Kyrie Irving could be more than enough to play a major spoiler role for the Bucks, the Raptors, the Celtics or the Miami Heat in the playoffs.

Selling the Nets short might be the cool thing to do in 2020, but don’t fall for the fad. They’re going to be a problem in the Eastern Conference with a healthy Kevin Durant.