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Can you make an argument that Kevin Durant was the best player of his team in every season of his NBA career? (alien.top)

submitted 1 year ago by Beautiful_Ad55@alien.top to c/nba@nba.space

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Obviously, a season like 2014/15 doesn’t count, where he was out injured almost the whole season.

Durant joined the SuperSonics in 2007, averaging 20 PPG in his rookie season. He then played for OKC for many years together with Westbrook and Harden. Then he went to Golden State, playing with Curry and Thompson. After that, he joined the Brooklyn Nets and played with James Harden and Kyrie Irving. Lately, he joined the Suns with Devin Booker.

So I would say there are not many players in NBA history who had more star teammates over the years than KD. Can you still say that KD always was the #1 guy at the end of the day? Especially when it goes to the clutch time?

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[–] Single_Minute2829@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

KD was better then Steph on those three years. Importance is different then being the best, and KD had arguably his best years there, while Steph had his two best in 15-16 and 21-22. I do believe Steph is the better player all time, but in those two years KD was arguably the best player in the world.

[–] runningraider13@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How do you figure that KD was better than Steph those three years (Please don't say FMVPs - aka deciding 3 years of performance based on 9 games against the same opponent that focused their defence on limiting one of the two players)? Impact stats, performance with/without each of them, who the opponent's defence focused on limiting etc. all were heavily in Steph's favor.

[–] Beautiful_Ad55@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wasn’t Durant higher in the MVP race and All NBA in those years too? I think he was in the First Team in 2018 while Curry was in the Second Team, and they both were in the Second Team in the other years.

[–] runningraider13@alien.top 1 points 1 year ago

No, Steph was higher in MVP voting two of their three years together. And for All-NBA, Steph is a guard and KD is a forward - they aren't competing for the same spots. But still, no that's not right - in 18/19 Steph was 1st team, KD 2nd team; in 17/18 Steph was 3rd (51 games played), KD was 1st, in 16/17 they both were 2nd team.

Neither of those are really great metrics though because they're both 1) just a reflection of what media members thought and 2) were at least as heavily influenced by the number of regular season games each player played each year.