Houston Rockets star forward Kevin Durant is well aware of the chatter that he needs to prove he can win an NBA championship without star point guard Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors, but he has no problem dismissing the narrative.
While speaking to Sports Illustrated, Durant said he doesn’t feel the same pressure to win a title without Curry the way the late, great Kobe Bryant felt with Shaquille O’Neal because he knows how big of a role he played in those Warriors championship wins in 2017 and 2018.
“If I went out there for the Warriors and wasn’t the Finals MVP like Kobe was with Shaq, and had moments where I didn’t average 30 a game or get seven, eight assists or have 40 and hit big shots, then I would say, yeah, I need to prove that I can do that on that level. But, I’ve done that on that level,” Durant said. “So, I never looked at Steph like Shaq, or me as Kobe. I just felt like we were our own new thing, he proved that he can play on that level, and I proved that I can play on that level at the same time.”
Durant spent three seasons with the Warriors and helped lead the team to three straight NBA Finals appearances, being named Finals MVP in their two title wins. His torn Achilles in the 2019 NBA Finals against the Toronto Raptors was a key reason why Golden State fell short of the three-peat. Since departing the team that offseason, he’s now on his third different team, and he’s yet to experience similar playoff success.
Meanwhile, Curry led the Warriors back to the mountaintop in 2022 and earned his first career Finals MVP award. Last season, Durant famously shut down a trade that would’ve sent him back to Golden State from the Phoenix Suns.
While fans would’ve surely enjoyed seeing them get the band back together, Durant said he doesn’t want to change the legacy that he had with the Warriors.
“That time with me and Golden State should be wrapped up and looked at as such. There should be no more residual from like, ‘Could you do this?’ … I don’t want that time to be changed, I want you to appreciate what that’s worth, and we done moved on from here,” he said.
The 37-year-old admitted that he could understand the narrative that he has to win a championship without the Warriors if he failed to rise to the occasion, but he feels he did enough to earn those two titles.
“As a fan of the game and somebody who talks the game and has that barbershop talk, yeah, if I didn’t play on that level in those moments, and I didn’t create those moments for that team, then yeah, you can say that I want to prove that I can win without them,” he said. “But, I was a Finals MVP averaging 35 a night. Like, what? That don’t make no sense to me.”
Read the full article here