Is Kevin Durant Doing It Again......?

if you ain't driving the bus don't walk around talk about you're a champion if you riding the bus I don't want to hear it all these guys walk around with these Championship Ring Hey Y'all bus riders but let me tell you when you bus when you're the bus driver and you got all that pressure when you have to play well or you going to get to blame that's a different animal Kevin Durant said I feel like I should be in the goat conversation well if you feel like you should be in the goat conversation you actually got to do goat things and goat things is actually building and going and win winning a NBA championship would you actually leading the team that needs to be led and that's why I put so much pressure on him to get uncomfortable in Phoenix and go outside his comfort zone and be the leader that they need him to be throw wi K not only is he one of the greatest players of all time Kevin Durant is probably bucket for bucket the most talented scorer in NBA history for 16 years KD has torched every defense in the league with his ridiculous highlevel scoring an incredible one-of aind offensive Talent unmatched in the modern era as two performances Durant oh and a foul but his Sublime individual success has not been matched by his Collective team success his legacy Still Remains unfulfilled and paradoxical by joining the 73- win Golden State Warriors after losing to them in the playoffs Durant went from an NBA hero to villain overnight and since that celebrated but controversial run in the Bay Area franchises from Brooklyn to Phoenix have handed in the keys to lead super teams of his own making only to end in a string of failures falling short every time nobody doubts Kevin Durant's individual basketball Talent he's one of the best in history he's a cold-blooded scorer many people doubt his ability to elevate his team is Durant just a bad leader or has KD just been the casualty in a series of bad super team constructions by different teams where would his legacy be if he retired today what would his legacy be if he won another championship let's unpack KD's Story the current super team with the Suns how good has Kevin Durant been compared to other NBA legends ridiculously good maybe top 10 of all time in the entire history of the league they're only four other players who have been able to reach his career averages of 27 points seven rebounds and four assists per game let me repeat there are only four players in the 77 years of NBA existence that have averaged more per game than KD elen Baylor Will Chamberlain LeBron James and Luca donic now Katie is second only to LeBron James on that list with the most games played and we already know that LeBron's longevity has just been otherworldly for 16 years Durant has been a superstar in the league since he was awarded with Rookie of the Year with the Seattle superponics to this season with the Phoenix Suns where he is averaging almost 27 points per game with 63% true shooting ktie has made it clear he's an offense Powerhouse very few Defenders are capable of facing him but when we talk about players who dominate for so long we're usually talking about generational players now is Kevin Durant one of them to be considered a generational player you have to have accomplished two things during your career the first is to dominate an era the second is to have changed the game can we say KD has dominated the last decade of course we can but has he changed the game well that's a little harder to answer the truth is that Durant has been such a unique player when he came into the league his enormous length combined with his Divine Touch made him a unicorn unlike anyone we've seen before and anyone who came after that kind of player that changes the Next Generation with this game like someone like Steph Curry has done his length skill and touch have been completely unmatched is there anyone who was able to follow in his footsteps someone like Brandon Ingram maybe but none of them come close to the enormous Elite level Talent he has maybe the next Generation coming up now players like Chad hren or Victor wanyama will be able to reach KD's technical skill level but for the moment no big man scorer has his skill nobody's able to score so efficiently and his shot is automatic from the mid-range he's totally Unstoppable one-on-one so I wouldn't say Durant has necessarily changed the game yet but not because of lack of skill because no one has been able to replicate his game he is truly one of one so yes Durant is arguably a generational player which would put him in the goat debate right well we all know Katie's opinion on that however when Kevin said this a lot of people didn't really take him seriously nobody was really considering him next to LeBron or MJ or even Steph Durant is a step or two below the tier just below the greatest of all time still not a bad place to be the reason is simple Beyond his spectacular run with the Warriors ktie has been unable to win any titles on his own team or as Barkley likes to say driving the bus in fact since leaving San Francisco in 2019 he hasn't even been able to reach the Conference Finals with his teams first with the trio he formed with the Nets with Kyrie Irving and James Harden they suffered injuries and ended up only playing 16 games together and then fell short with Devon Booker on the sun's last season of course he's not the only one to point to in fact in his spectacular Series against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021 he averaged 35.4 points per game on 50% shooting from the field he was the only one who came out to play that year but the reality is that for one reason or another his teams have never been consistent in crunch time the NBA has always been a league where Legacy has been been directly proportional to the amount of achievements and the number of rings at the top a ring is more valuable than a regular season MVP the Katie's two rings were different from the rest his decision to join the Golden State Warriors after being eliminated by them in the playoffs the year before leaves a stain on his legacy KD went from hero to villain his Rings will forever have an asterisk next to them for many people that's why Durant has tried to salvage his legacy by leaving and trying to win a champion ship on his own team so far this plan hasn't worked out so well for him after his super team experiment in Brooklyn failed dramatically he's trying again in Phoenix once again he's paired up with two more incredible offensive players but during the last playoffs the Suns fell again in the second round of the playoffs the team could not contain the two-man game of the Denver Nuggets and fell again prematurely but that was understandable Durant had arrived at the trade deadline That season and needed time to adjust adjust to a new team this last off season the Suns also acquired the offensive star Bradley Beal the team would have time to develop chemistry and lead the west or at least those were the plans right reality is that the suns are fighting for a spot to even make the playoffs of course the western conference is more stacked than ever but the Suns had much higher hopes than this barely scraping into the playoffs to flame out again even with Durant averaging 27 points on excellent shooting percentages and Devon Booker having a great season for his standards the Suns still can't get it going the reasons could be many perhaps the absence of a point guard to help them find better offensive situations or perhaps the lack of sufficient Talent off the bench because of the huge salaries of the starters or just a little time all three stars have actually gotten to play together the main issue is that the suns were expecting to be a championship Contender after getting Durant especially after turning the Aging Chris Paul into Bradley Beal one of the best shooting Ys in the NBA the difference between aspirations and reality has been sobering injuries to Booker and Beal have created a hole that the team's depth has been unable to fill all three stars have barely got to play together this season does this problem sound familiar yes it's exactly what happened with the Net's super team now the Phoenix Suns find themselves in a tricky situation just a few seasons ago they made it to the NBA finals which they ended up losing to the buck the roster featured young players with great potential such as Cal Bridges DeAndre Aon and of course Devin Booker with the franchise in a full upward swing after losing the finals Matt ishbia decided to go Allin his idea was that if they could find a second star no defense in the west could stand up to them and the truth is that when they got Kevin Durant at the 2023 trade deadline it seemed like they had succeeded everyone had high hopes for the team every Sports Talk Show was dreaming about the possibilities of a deadly one-w offensive punch with KD and Booker so far these lofty dreams have yet to materialize in Phoenix it's looking more and more like a failed super team the problem is that to get KD they had to mortgage their entire future first with male Bridges and cam Johnson and then by giving up their draft picks that is the problem with super teams you have to gut the rest of the roster in order to bring in the top talent as of today the Suns have no first round picks until 2031 all of the odear first rounders 2025 2027 and 2029 now belong to the Nets because of the KD trade all of the even years from 2024 through 2030 are gone in fact Phoenix doesn't own any of their future second rounders either they all belong to Washington except for one that belongs to Oklahoma they've quite literally gone all in for this team and they're struggling just to make it into the playoffs the owners have milked every asset on the team to build a starting five that's Unstoppable but it's not well if they're able to win a championship somehow then it will all have been worth it but it's not looking good right now actually any of the five teams currently above them in the standings would have a real chance of eliminating them Adrien wojanowski himself reported on KD's frustration during the month of December this led to his name being thrown around in random trade ideas this situation is nothing new Durant was vocal on several occasions about his opinion of the roster when he was playing in Brooklyn and he also let Shawn Marx know his frustration Durant hasn't exactly been blessed by luck in his recent NBA runs all the drama surrounding Kyrie his injuries stepping on the line in that potential gamewinner against the Milwaukee Bucks there has been many details that have led him to this situation but a real leader despite the setbacks will always lead by example Durant on many occasions lacks this capacity for commitment now is it necessary to be a vocal leader to be a great player in the NBA it doesn't have to there are stars who simply don't have that kind of personality however it may be necessary to be a vocal leader to be a generational player LeBron James Michael Jordan toe Bryant Larry Bird Magic Johnson the greatest players in NBA history have been vocal leaders in their locker rooms they have been that powerful player who influenced management decisions Kevin Durant despite being as talented or even more talented than some of these players is not that kind of guy it seems like all KD cares about is enjoying playing the game of basketball he's a player who clearly dislikes the whole circus around the NBA he doesn't like the media he doesn't like being under the microscope he doesn't like being criticized he just wants to do his best and be remembered for his incredible talent and this has led to numerous run-ins with the Press who ultimately control the narrative the animosity towards Durant is nothing new it's been going on since his decision in 2016 many were upset with his decision to join the Warriors the team that had just eliminated him in the playoffs but k Ka has not realized that today he has the opportunity to change that narrative he has his own team maybe Durant needs a challenge like this nobody trusts the Phoenix Suns to win the ring this year the clear favorite in the west is the Denver Nuggets even other contenders like the Oklahoma City Thunder Los Angeles Clippers or Minnesota Timberwolves look like teams better prepared than the Suns or even the New Orleans Pelicans who we're having a truly spectacular end of the season with Zion Williamson back in True Form but going back in time no one thought the Warriors of 2022 could win the ring either but they did that Championship is the one that really elevated sta the 2022 ring was an anomaly brought about by a generational player who was able to put the team on his back like he hadn't had to for his entire career those who were more skeptical of Curry argued that he had only been able to win Rings surrounded by one of the best rosters and offensive systems in history but during those playoffs Curry carried his team like someone who was playing for his life those same people watched as their opinion was crushed by an unforgettable performance that unlikely Championship raised his legacy to another level Kevin Durant has the opportunity to do the same this year just imagine how the global perception would change if he were able to achieve the impossible with three rings and maybe three finals MVPs he would be an Undisputed alltime top 10 player his legacy would finally be safe and his career would be remembered for that Unforgettable performance in 2024 in which he was able to lift a seventh seated team to win the ring even his time with the Warriors would go sweetened in the history books just like LeBron's time with the Miami Heat when he made his controversial decision and if that were to happen no one absolutely no one would be able to say that his career is not that of a generational player the media's excuses for criticizing him with stop KD's own excuses wouldn't be necessary anymore but to be honest this Mission seems more like something out of a science fiction movie than a scenario that could actually happen in real life in the worst case scenario Katie would be remembered as one of the best scorers in NBA history he would be remembered as a super talented player who could only win in one context and who was never able to lift the Larry O'Brien award by himself on his own team as a spectacular scorer with all the skills in the world who was simply Unstoppable but who at the same time was unable to involve his teammates as other superstars have done a better career than 99% of players who have passed through the league but at the same time still below that tier of alltime greats the greatest players in NBA history ultimately are measured by their championship rings Jordan has six Kobe five and LeBron has four now in the best case scenario with another ring Katie would reach a much much higher level level that only a handful of players have managed to reach in the history of the NBA he could go from one of the top scorers of all time time to truly placing himself in the goat debate time is running out it's make or break time for Kevin Durant to silence the doubters and cement his legacy [Applause]

Channel: Shooters Touch

Views: 34,375

Keywords: nba compilation, phoenix suns, Kevin Durant, Suns, Basketball, playoffs, league pass, NBA league pass, playoff basketball, Devin Booker

Id: bcTCnQ0KThc

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 21 2024