Kevin Durant can re-write his legacy in the Borough of Kings

By adopting Brooklyn, NY as his new home, returning superstar Kevin Durant is tasked with a tremendous undertaking that he may not fully understand yet.

Before the injury that stripped the basketball world of arguably its best talent at the height of his powers, we’d come to accept Kevin Durant’s ability as indisputable. No obstacle on a basketball court was too difficult for Durant to overcome with his ludicrous blend of size, skill and overwhelming competitive spirit.

Now, KD stands at the dawn of a challenge that far transcends anything he faced before in his playing career. Beyond the fact that this 32-year-old man is fighting back from the most devastating injury a basketball player can face, he’ll do it as a representative of the Brooklyn Nets. In fact, Durant accepted the challenge of becoming the most important athlete to represent Brooklyn since the great Jackie Robinson.

New York City is broken up into five boroughs, each of which is considered its own county. Brooklyn is dubbed ‘Kings County,’ and for good reason, it breeds excellence. A long line of all-time great individuals from the pinnacle of their crafts stem from the county of kings, but they’ve all come to learn that being a king comes at a cost.

Like a torn Achilles tendon, Brooklyn can be unforgiving. From the edge of Coney Island to the tip of Greenpoint, every Brooklynite knows that nothing comes easy in this city. When you come from where we come from, you have to scrap, claw and fight for everything you have. Before learning how to prosper, one must learn how to survive. Once that’s achieved, you must fight to maintain it.

Despite the difficulties posed by trying to make it in Brooklyn, it’s also the most rewarding and inspiring place to flourish. The opportunities are plentiful, the people bring a unique flair, the sense of community is powerful and the pride that accompanies success in Brooklyn is unlike any other accomplishment. It’s not an easy path, but it’s a gratifying one and that’s what Kevin Durant signed up for when he decided to move to Brooklyn last offseason.

Signing with a 73-win team, one that came back from a 3-1 lead to defeat you in the conference finals, is the easy way out. Winning two championships and back-to-back Finals MVPs deserves credit, but much of his success in those three seasons with the Golden State Warriors can be attributed to an unlikely twist of fate and salary cap ingenuity. A team like that was never supposed to be constructed, yet Durant stumbled into the opportunity and capitalized in a way only he could.

That’s not going to fly in Brooklyn and he knows it. Durant’s been on the receiving end of tireless character assassinations for the better part of the last five years. Between his personal social media accounts and various burners, Durant knows what’s been said about him and who said it. Despite the Orlando bubble overwhelming the narrative about asterisks in NBA history, no player’s resume has the glaring asterisks that Durant’s does from joining the one team he couldn’t beat.

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Kings County, however, provides a new beginning. Despite being a mediocre franchise in the grand scheme of NBA history, being in Brooklyn applies an entire facet of pressure no athlete of his caliber has tackled in the modern era of the sport. Even his running-mate, Kyrie Irving, faces only a fraction of the burden that falls on Durant’s shoulders heading into the final stages of his NBA career.

Is Kevin Durant going to return to peak form and take the league by storm? Quite frankly, it’s too early to call. Logic points toward that being a ‘no,’ but many wouldn’t put it past someone as relentlessly talented as Durant. Even so, accepting the role as the face of the franchise in a city where very few pro basketball players have dared to try their hand proves that KD is fearless.

Durant isn’t afraid of an Achilles tear, he’s not crippled by the expectations and he’s certainly not daunted by the public’s perception of his leadership ability.

The next chapter of one of the greatest stories in basketball history is set to unfold on Tuesday, December 22, 2020, against the team that he most recently played for and in turn, the ghost of his former self.