Kevin Durant’s 20th season in the NBA will be a pivotal one for the Houston Rockets. Not only is it time for a young team to grow and prove it can move past the first round of the playoffs, but it could be the final season Durant wears Rockets red.
Durant, who turns 38 next week, has a player option worth $46 million for the 2027-28 season, but he’s proven that he doesn’t mind moving around, as he’s played for five different teams in the past 11 seasons.
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At the team’s annual media day Tuesday, Rafael Stone espoused hope that Durant is here to stay, touting the team’s relationship with the superstar, noting that “it feels like he’s really happy to be here.”
“With a guy like that, you want to be respectful of his career and everything else, so we’ll have a sit down to talk at the end of this year just like we did the end of last year, but I have every expectation that he’s going to be just as happy if not happier than he was this offseason,” the Rockets general manager said. “The one thing he wanted to make very clear to me coming out of last year was just how much he enjoyed it and how much he wanted to be here.”
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Durant wasn’t ready to talk about what might happen next summer when he hasn’t even taken his first dribble in training camp for this season’s team.
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“I’m not thinking about anything like that,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed coming into work every day. It’s been fun going through the process with everybody. I’m taking it a day at a time and that’s the most I can do. Who knows what will happen down the line or in the future, but right now, I enjoy showing up for work.”
However this season goes, it seems clear Durant, who ranks fifth on the NBA’s all-time scoring list and figures to pass Kobe Bryant for the fourth spot at some point this season, isn’t ready to think about retirement. As Stone put it, Durant “just wants to hoop,” which is evident in every workout video that pops up in the offseason, showing Durant still working hard at his craft.
“I just show up to the gym every day,” he said. “Whatever comes to mind that my trainers want to work on, I work on. Every day’s not the same, but showing up is going to get you better. I try to keep my routine. The same mentality I have in the season, I try to ramp it up in the offseason. Every time I walk into the gym is about fine-tuning my game offensively.”
While Durant’s offseason work is merely a habit to him at this point, he still can put on a show for newcomers.
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Bruce Thornton, who the Rockets picked 31st overall in this year’s draft, smiled wide when describing his recent debut in a pickup game involving Durant.
“It was definitely insane, I’m not gonna lie,” the former Ohio State captain said. “I called my friends like, ‘Yo, there’s definitely levels to this.’ I’m on defense and I almost caught myself watching like, ‘Is this guy gonna miss? ‘ Every time he shoots it, the ball is going in.”
It’s been more than 10 years since Marcus Smart first played against Durant in an NBA game, so he may be past the awe stage, but he’s relieved to finally be on Durant’s side after signing a two-year deal with the Rockets in the offseason.
“I get to be on the other side of him taking the shot and not him taking the shots over me,” the former NBA Defensive Player of the Year said. “It’s just tough with his ability to make shots, it doesn’t matter who’s there. It also doesn’t help that he’s close to 7-foot, and I’m close to 6-foot and he just shoots right over the top of me. So, to be able to pass him the ball and go, OK, I get to actually watch the shot and not worry about trying to make him miss. I think that’s going to be the fascinating part to be able to watch him do what he does best.”
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Even 19 years in, Durant was excellent last season, averaging 26 points per game while shooting 41.3% from the 3-point line. He also played the second-most minutes in the entire NBA, behind only teammate Amen Thompson. He was healthy enough to start in 78 regular season games, but then played in just one of the team’s six playoff games. Durant points out that his injuries in the playoffs had nothing to do with wear and tear, and were from him stepping on someone’s ankle and banging into a teammate’s knee.
When told Stone and Rockets coach Ime Udoka had mentioned they’d like to get his minutes down this season, Durant bluntly asked, “Why?” before stating his case for the status quo.
“I’m better on the court. The team is better when I’m on the court,” Durant said. “Now, if we handle our business in the first three quarters or earlier in the game, then maybe, but just for the sake of getting my minutes down just because ‘Oh, he’s older’ or ‘Oh, he’s played a lot of minutes,’ like that’s what I’m supposed to be training for to play the long haul, to play 48 minutes a night. I get the concern, but if the game needs me to be out there, I want to be out there.”
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This article originally published at Kevin Durant not thinking past this season with Rockets, doesn’t want any minutes restriction.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
