It takes quite a bit to make basketball seem like a wrestle for Kevin Durant. The Minnesota Timberwolves, with a suffocating mix of perimeter strain and rim safety, are doing a rattling good job of it within the first-round playoff sequence they lead 2-0. However so are the Phoenix Suns, who transfer about as a lot as cement and purpose to outlive on simply in regards to the unhealthiest shot weight-reduction plan recognized to man.
The Suns look effectively on their option to a first-round exit. If that does grow to be their destiny, Durant will transfer to 2-4 in six playoff sequence since leaving the Golden State Warriors in 2019, at which level he started attempting to superteam his option to post-Stephen Curry validation.
Durant, individually, has acquitted himself simply wonderful. Shock-jock scorching takes however, he by no means had something to show in that regard within the first place. He was sensational earlier than teaming up with Curry, and he is been sensational after. However the playoff losses are piling up as a result of, even for a scorer as gifted as Durant, basketball turns into very troublesome once you’re going at it largely alone.
It is to not recommend Durant would not have assist in Phoenix, and he definitely had assist in Brooklyn when the Nets had been wholesome, which, to be honest, was by no means absolutely the case within the playoffs. However the specific gamers that Durant has chosen to companion with are largely smaller variations of himself. Devin Booker and Kyrie Irving are bucket getters who create largely for themselves. Bradley Beal is an overqualified spot-up shooter however is not ok to command equal inventive rights in Phoenix.
Booker, particularly, is midrange obsessed. He and Durant collectively can solely add as much as their very own scoring totals, which is to say, apart from the plain undeniable fact that they draw consideration away from each other as any two superstars do, they do not essentially make something simpler for one another. The Warriors, gifted as they had been individually, added as much as greater than the sum of their elements with their ball and participant motion. The Curry issue was, is and ceaselessly might be exponential.
For Durant, basketball has by no means been simpler than that first yr he arrived in Golden State, when his 68% true-shooting clip within the playoffs was by far a profession excessive. Actually, the 5 greatest single-series taking pictures clips of Durant’s playoff profession all got here with the Warriors, and the 130.1 factors per 100 photographs that he averaged over three playoff seasons with Golden State, per Cleansing the Glass, trumps any single-year playoff mark of scoring effectivity he has achieved with some other crew.
That is not by likelihood. His photographs with the Warriors, fairly merely, had been simpler. By no means earlier than, and by no means after, has Durant not been the full-game focus of the protection. In Golden State, Curry, as a rule, shouldered that burden, and Golden State’s impromptu motion made it almost unattainable for defenses to drill down on Durant’s trademark scoring spots.
One instance: Isolations solely accounted for 10% of KD’s playoff possessions throughout that 2016-17 playoff run, per Synergy, and 56% of his buckets had been assisted, which suggests he did not need to create them for himself. Examine that to Durant’s first playoff run in Brooklyn, when isolations accounted for 25% of his scoring possessions and solely 44% of his buckets had been assisted.
That pattern has continued in Phoenix, the place he remoted on 25% of his playoff possessions final season and is doing so 26% of the time thus far in opposition to Minnesota. It goes with out saying that Durant is a deadly one-on-one scorer, so he will get, and has gotten, his numbers (49 factors on 53.1% taking pictures from the ground in two video games) even when the diploma of problem is bigger than it would should be. Actually, Durant fairly clearly prefers a tougher basketball highway, even when becoming a member of forces with Curry made it appear to be he fancied the simple approach out.
Even in his second season with the Warriors, 2017-18, you may inform that Durant needed to play his approach after spending his first season utterly acquiescing to Golden State’s system. Throughout that playoff run, Durant’s isolation price jumped 17% from his first postseason with the Warriors, and never coincidentally, his effectivity suffered. Durant shot 49% general in these playoffs, together with 34% from 3, down from 56% and 44% the yr prior.
It did not matter. Durant nonetheless averaged 29 factors in these playoffs and the Warriors gained the title. However he is not 29 years previous anymore, and he is not on the Warriors. Now he is 35, and although he nonetheless performed at a First-Group All-NBA degree this season, the toll continues to climb.
Over three postseasons with the Warriors, Durant averaged just below 38 minutes per recreation. In 4 playoff runs since, he is averaged just below 42 minutes. I suppose the silver lining is Durant hasn’t been previous the second spherical with Brooklyn or Phoenix, so the overall playoff minutes have gone down. However that, after all, has been the issue. He is not profitable.
Over 35 playoff video games since leaving the Warriors, Durant has gone 16-19. I wish to be clear: None of that’s his fault, except you wish to blame him for the hand he had within the preliminary Kyrie and Booker partnerships and the next additions of James Harden in Brooklyn and Beal in Phoenix. His GM resume won’t look too good.
However his basketball resume is spotless. None of what I’ve written right here is supposed as an indictment on Durant as an all-time nice participant, and that is absolutely not an try and opine on his resolution to both be a part of or depart the Warriors. He had his causes for each. He is entitled. I’m merely saying that basketball has grow to be a harder endeavor for Durant since leaving the Warriors.
He could have needed it that approach. The problem appeals to opponents. If you are going to critique the man for becoming a member of an already all-time nice crew within the Warriors, then you need to at the least acknowledge that he is chosen to embrace a decidedly uphill grind these final 5 years when he might’ve simply resigned with the Warriors and continued taking pictures fish in a barrel.
It have to be famous that the Warriors have discovered life after Durant to be fairly troublesome, too. They’ve missed the playoffs three of the final 5 years. However the 2022 championship made all of the struggles worthwhile. Durant’s nonetheless lacking that payoff. He hasn’t even gotten shut. Kyrie and Harden sabotaged his time in Brooklyn and the solar is about to set in Phoenix.
Subsequent yr Durant might be 36. The Suns haven’t any actual avenue to enchancment. He can do the trade-demand factor once more, however the place has that gotten him? Durant’s post-Warriors ambition is admirable, and by no means in 1,000,000 years would he concede to any remorse. However as profitable and the sport itself proceed to demand increasingly more of his expertise and vitality, he can sit again and take into consideration how good he used to have it.
