Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Monday, folks! It’s Sykes here, filling in for BK today. Hope you had an excellent weekend and have a ton of exciting stuff planned for this week.
Kevin Durant made sure that we’d come into the week with something to talk about. The Phoenix Suns star threw himself into the GOAT conversation over the weekend in an interview with the Arizona Republic’s Duane Rankin.
Most people don’t mention Durant’s name when the conversations about the best to ever pick up a basketball come up. He’s often overlooked with two obvious choices in Michael Jordan and LeBron James sucking up all the air. There’s also the Kobe Bryant component there, too. Now, some folks are even throwing Steph Curry’s name in.
Durant’s name is one you never hear. The question is why. Well, Durant thinks it’s because of his stint with the Warriors. And, honestly, he might be right.
Here’s what he had to say, per Rankin:
“Because I went to the Warriors,” Durant said in an exclusive interview with The Republic last week. “Why shouldn’t I be in that? That’s the question you should ask. Why not? What haven’t I done?”
He’s not wrong. People hated those Warriors teams. The team was already unlikable after the 73-win season. Durant came in and made Golden State unbeatable.
Honestly, it’s hard to blame folks. That team was the Death Star. It ruled the NBA for the three years Durant was there. The only reason the reign ended was because of infighting and injury. Had Durant stayed and not torn his Achilles, we could be talking about a run of four or five championships instead of just two.
What’s done is done. That isn’t the question here, though. What’s worth discussing, rather, is whether Durant is right here. Does he belong in the GOAT conversation? Could he be the best player of all time?
According to anybody’s traditional measures? The answer is no. He doesn’t have the accolades. But don’t get it twisted — Durant’s trophy cabinet is nothing to scoff at. Along with those two Finals trophies are two Finals MVP trophies — he was the best player on those Warriors’ teams. Along with that, he’s got three Gold medals and is Team USA’s All-Time leading scorer.
Speaking of scoring, Durant is 10th on the all-time scoring list and got there with barely 1,000 games played in his career. If he stays a bit healthier throughout his career, there’s an easy path to him being top five at this point. He won’t finish his career as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, but he’s probably the greatest scorer we’ve ever seen.
It’s in this sense that Durant is right. There’s nothing he hasn’t done. He’s given everything to the sport. He’s one of the best scorers ever, he’s won Gold medals, he’s beaten some of the best to ever do it (including LeBron James!) on his path to winning championships. Without a doubt, he is one of the best players ever.
Does this make him the GOAT? Well, just like anything with these discussions, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Most people aren’t going to pick him. But somebody will. And they can argue with whoever they want about it on their own time.
Regardless of whether you think he’s the GOAT, the bottom line is this: Durant deserves far more respect than he gets these days. It’s a shame that he doesn’t get it.
Hopefully, he doesn’t have to go away for the masses to finally give it to him.
A sweet moment for the James Gang
Bronny James just being able to play basketball right now is a pretty cool thing considering what he went through this summer.
You have to imagine that, as a dad, LeBron James is extremely proud of his son and how far he’s come in his journey — not just as a basketball player but as a human being.
But for LeBron, though, it all seemed to hit him in this moment he shared over the weekend. LeBron was hanging with his mom and watching Bronny play, our Robert Zeglinski writes.
Then, according to James, this happened:
WARNING: There is some NSFW language in this tweet
Crazy man! My mom sitting right next to me just said “You know how amazing this is!? Sitting here with my son while watching my grandson on TV. I feel so present and blessed”. Shit almost brought me to tears just now.
— LeBron James (@KingJames) January 20, 2024
Robert put it perfectly here in his piece. “That’s beautiful,” Zeglinski wrote. “That sort of thing transcends playing regular basketball, especially for an all-time great like James. When it’s your child playing the sport at a high level with your mom watching, it probably doesn’t get any better.”
That’s got to be an extremely cool moment, man.
Shootaround
—Mitchell Northam has us covered on Tara VanDerveer surpassing Coach K for the all-time wins record. GOAT.
— Nikola Jokic and the Nuggets honored Dejan Milojević in such a special way. This is cool, man.
— Here’s Layup Lines from Friday on how this trade deadline might be a quiet one after the Siakam trade.
That’s a wrap, folks! Thanks so much for reading today. We appreciate you! Have a fantastic week. Let’s chat again on Wednesday. Our latest power rankings will come out then!
Until next time, we out.
-Sykes ✌️