For the last five years since leaving the Oklahoma City Thunder for the Golden State Warriors, Kevin Durant has been chided by fans around the NBA for creating super teams and chasing titles.
He’s played on absolutely star-studded teams with, now, multiple MVP’s. Stephen Curry, James Harden, Klay Thompson, Kyrie Irving. The list goes on. Every team he’s been on has almost been a virtual lock to at least make it to the NBA Finals when healthy.
But, despite all of that, Durant says he isn’t motivated anymore by just playing for championships.
Instead, he told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols in a Sportscenter interview, it’s about seeing how good he can be.
“I wasn’t expecting to be a happy human being from a title. I was just expecting like, you know, the ending of a movie — once you worked so hard and everybody tells you like, ‘Yo, this is what you need to be working for, is this gold ball and these rings.’ And I’m just like, ‘All right, cool, let me lock in on that.’ And I locked in on wanting to achieve that, but I also realized it’s a lot of stuff that factors in it that’s out of my control.”
That’s…interesting. For a lot of people, that will certainly be hard to believe. He currently plays on a team with an absurd amount of All-Star appearances under its belt. Of course, Durant wants to win a title with the Nets — multiple titles.
But, as skeptical as people are going to be about what he’s saying here, it still makes sense.
Here’s the thing: He’s already an all-time great. He’s got an MVP trophy, two championships and two finals MVP trophies. He’s played on some of the greatest teams ever. He has nothing left to prove.
His legacy is cemented in that regard. The only thing left to see is how much farther he can build it. And that’s what he seems to be most interested in.
That’ll be quite the journey for us to watch.
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