Kevin Durant is featured on the latest season of Starting 5, but his relationship with Netflix is far from over.
On Thursday, Netflix announced it is filming “the definitive documentary series chronicling” his career. It started shooting for the upcoming docuseries ahead of the 2023-24 campaign and will continue doing so through the 2025-26 season and beyond.
Durant has one of the most fascinating careers in NBA history, and there will be no shortage of material for Netflix to draw from for this series.
He has been in the public eye since he was the Associated Press Player of the Year in his one and only season at Texas in 2006-07 and developed into one of the greatest players in NBA history with a number of different stops and chapters along the way.
That NBA journey started when the Seattle SuperSonics selected him with the No. 2 pick of the 2007 draft. He and the franchise moved to Oklahoma City to become the Thunder after he was the Rookie of the Year, and he, James Harden and Russell Westbrook formed an exciting young core.
It seemed like the trio would win a number of championships together, but OKC traded James Harden to the Houston Rockets and never came through before Durant left for the Golden State Warriors after losing to them in the 2016 Western Conference Finals.
That move to Golden State will surely be featured in the docuseries, as it remains one of the most highly scrutinized transactions in NBA history.
It made an already dominant Warriors team that won an NBA-record 73 games in 2015-16 completely unstoppable, and they won back-to-back titles in Durant’s first two seasons. They might have won a third in a row if he didn’t suffer an Achilles injury during the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors.
Durant further solidified his status as an all-timer by winning NBA Finals MVP in each of those championships, but that he did so while playing with Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson drew backlash from some fans.
And Durant is someone who is not hesitant to engage with those fans on social media, which makes him seem like one of the most accessible superstars in NBA history. That dynamic will surely be explored in the docuseries, as well as more of his life off the court.
There are plenty of other basketball storylines available as well, seeing how he recovered from that Achilles injury after missing the 2019-20 season to return to his status as one of the top players in the league.
Teaming up with Harden and Kyrie Irving with the Brooklyn Nets did not bring the championship-level success they surely envisioned. Neither did playing alongside Devin Booker and Bradley Beal on the Phoenix Suns.
Now he is a veteran leader for the Houston Rockets following an offseason trade and back in the state where he starred for the Longhorns.
Durant is still playing at a high level at 37 years old, so Netflix’s conclusion is yet to be revealed.
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