Kevin Durant is one of the premier scorers the NBA has ever seen, and he does a lot of other basketball things well, too. Durant is formidable defender who can block shots and use his length to bother opponents.
And not only does Durant score, he also shares the ball — which is why other superstars (see Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving, James Harden) have wanted to play with him.
If there has been any knock on KD during his surefire Hall of Fame career, it’s a relatively weak one: that he can’t win championships without another superstar. It’s weak because, first of all, nobody wins titles alone.
But there remains this lingering notion — mostly because Durant’s two NBA titles came with Curry and the Warriors — that he isn’t the super alpha dog that, say, LeBron James is.
It’s BS. Utterly. Pure nonsense.
But just because it isn’t true doesn’t mean it’s not out there. And there is only one way to combat the notion and that’s for Durant to win a chip without another superstar.
Now suddenly Kyrie Irving‘s leaving for Dallas gives Durant an opening to travel this lane alone, leading the team as a solo alpha.
(Once there were three in Brooklyn, but James Harden split last year for Philly, with Ben Simmons — decidedly not a superstar — replacing him.)
Presently, Durant is the lone “superstar” on the Nets roster — though returning Net Spencer Dinwiddie is superb and the roster has been good enough to show a winning record even with Durant out injured. And they won after Irving left, too.
What if Durant doesn’t also ditch Brooklyn, as many suspect, and instead stays? Could he put those restless notions to rest once and for all?
The other Nets have stepped up since Irving’s departure, plus the addition of Dinwiddie and Dorian Finney-Smith… and there is the idea that some of the picks the Nets acquired from Dallas won’t be stored away but rather traded now for quality players to help Durant down the stretch this season.
KD leading a team-oriented Nets team deep into the playoffs, maybe to the Finals? Without Kyrie or Curry or anyone like that wearing his uniform. There has got to be something attractive about the idea to Durant — though he alone probably knows if it’s realistic.
