Lots of speculation as to what KD will become. Me? I say he is the next Dominique Wilkins or George Gervin - great scorer, but that's about it. You?
lol really? He's pretty much become one of the best scorers in the league, a great rebounder, and a good defender, all at 22. He'll be better than those two, even though they were great players in their own right. For many years, he'll become the hero from the West, battling it out with Lebron for the title of the best player in the league.
Kevin Durant = Larry Bird The youngest player in NBA history to lead the League in scoring and his team is a real threat to boot. Just ask the Lakers how tough they were in the playoffs. And they're only going to get better. It's too bad they are doing it in the hell hole known as Oklahoma City and not Seattle.
MVP this year, and depending on the fortunes of the Thunder and their pursuit of a championship a chance to get in that discussion as one of the greatest players to ever lace 'em up. People keep wanting to compare him to George Gervin or Alex English, but to the best of my recollection neither of those guys ever put much effort into defense and KD already does at 22.
KD will go down as one of the best players in the history of the league. If you've watched him play you know this. There isn't a shot on the court he can't hit and he gets to the line at will. The day he decides to make defense a priority is the day he gets mentioned as the best in the L...Until then...top 5-7 will do. All that being said. The Thunder are going to make a lot of writers look ridiculously dumb this year.
If anyone actually believes he's going to be Dominique Wilkins (status), they need to reevaluate the kid. He's going to be much, much better.
In other news, Greg Oden has improved his grammar substantially, via Twitter, from his Yardbarker days! Seriously, I think KD iss going to be Larry Bird-esque.
by the way the choices are crap. it's either become the GOAT or become just another 'good player' lol. no real big difference amongst the other options.
How about Clyde Drexler or Karl Malone? Not in the conversation for GOAT, but comfortably on the next tier of consistent all stars/MVP candidates.
I just don't see what the fuss is about. He's a good mid-range shooter and he gets to the line a lot, but he's not a good defender, he's still stick-thin and I'm not sure that he will continue to draw fouls at the rate that he has. Further, I'm not sure that he will remain 100% healthy... we'll see what happens when he has a bit of an injury to overcome. Other than scoring he doesn't seem to do anything well, and while scoring is the single most important skill to possess, and while he's still quite young, I don't see him being a player that changes the face of the NBA. Ed O.
That's how I feel. I think the guy will have to endure some kind of major injury in the next few years, and it could considerably alter his abilities.
Durant scores, rebounds, passes and plays passable defense. There is a lot of homerism in this thread....as usual....when it comes to Durant. The guy is phenominal, and only the lack of a reliable sidekick will keep him from winning multiple titles. KP missed this one when he said he one would win NBA titles, and the other scoring titles. That is unless Greg develops an offensive game....I suppose he could win a scoring title.
Of the major four fundamental disciplines within the sport (scoring, passing, defense and killer instinct), guys like Kobe and MJ and some of the other greats like Shaq, Magic, Isiah, Bird, Kareem, etc. either have them all or were top 5 in the league in nearly all of those four disciplines. The problem with Durant is we really only look at one (scoring) to begin these conversations. His defense was horrible up until last year. It is passable as many of his fans will say, but it certainly isn't good or even close to great. That's one reason why you can obviously see in him that you'd never just be able to plug him on Cleveland and have them be a title contender like the Cavs were once LeBron got there with a solid core of the four disciplines. Even if we want to say Durant's defense is good, his passing is horrific. I like to use assist/TO ratio for backcourt players to see who turns the ball over more than they can pass it into another teammates hands. Durant is dead-last in the league of guys that play enough to qualify. So he's miles away in that area, which will always hinder him from getting close to a championship (link: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/assists/sort/assistTurnoverRatio/count/81). And killer instinct is tough to say when you're on a team that doesn't win much. But OKC did start to win this year and what we saw more and more of the KD from his one year of Texas, he was fine beating the teams they clearly overmatched, but once a good team came up against him, his passive nature caused him to tuck his head into his shell and give in and caused Texas to fold in the tourney early. We saw this same Durant against LA, while other guys were making strides and pressing the Lakers, Durant was folding under the pressure and his True Shooting % went from .607 to .499, his regular season PER of 26.2 went down to 16.6, his offensive rating went from 118 to a drab 98, his win share went from 16.1 to 0.3. That is completely disappearing in the playoffs. You can also see it if you just see how he did against good regular season teams last year like the Lakers, Cleveland, Boston, etc. or how good OKC did against playoff teams in tight games like OT games last year. Durant lacks the aggressive nature to have that MJ/Kobe killer instinct and will always more more like the McGrady/AI level of star vs. the future HOF type.
I see him as a better, smaller, lankier version of Dirk Nowitzki. Like Dirk, he's got the skills of a shooting guard in a taller package, which makes for a huge asset on the offensive end. On defense it's always going to be a problem, though, because he's not quick enough to guard SG's and not strong enough/determined enough to guard guys his own height.
I think that's a good comparison, but Dirk was never as athletic as Durant is. They're definitely comparable shooters though. I just don't know if Dirk had the drive that Durant does.
