Kevin Durant: A Solo Act

For example, Michael Jordan had 7 years before his partner Scottie Pippen developed into a 20 PPG scorer in 1991. By that time, Jordan had ran up his career numbers to a ridiculous 32.6 PTS 6.3 REB 5.9 AST and 2.8 STL. To put that into perspective, for the rest of Jordan’s career (he was 28 at the time) the highest PTS he averaged for a full season was 32.6, the same mark he averaged for his first 7 years of running wild and free.

A more recent example is LeBron James. James also had a nice 7 years before he finally played with a 20 PPG scorer in Dwyane Wade when he joined the Miami Heat in 2011. Up to that point, James had averages of 27.8 PTS 7 REB 7 AST and 1.7 STL. Excluding his rookie year, he was standing at a staggering 29 PTS 7.3 REB 7.1 AST and 1.8 STL. While his stats didn’t have the decline that Jordan’s did (his REB and AST went up actually) he would never meet the 27.8 PTS for the rest of his career or get close to the two 30 PTS seasons he put up in his first 7 seasons.

Kevin Durant only had 2 seasons at ages 20 and 21 (2008-2010) without a 20 PTS scorer. However, he made the most of them (1 scoring title with 30.1 PTS). For the rest of his career, he kept averages of 27.7 PTS 7.4 REB and 4.7 AST despite not leading the Warriors in FGA for all of his 3 years.

The good news is, we’ve seen flashes of what solo Durant can do. In his 2014 MVP season, his brilliance that year was enhanced by Westbrook being out. He was also on minutes restrictions. Despite this, Durant led the Thunder to 59 wins. In the 26 games Westbrook didn’t play in, Durant averaged a mind-blowing 35 PTS 7.5 REB and 6.3 AST while shooting 53% from the field. Fiurthermore, he shot 40% from three. The Thunder went 18-7 in those games as well.

More recently in 2019, Stephen Curry was out 11 games early in the season. Durant took the lead ball-handler role and averaged 33.7 PTS 8.5 REB and 6.1 AST on 48% FG. Also, he shot 30% from the three. Durant did that without his three point shot falling as well. We’re probably looking at more than 35 PTS if he wasn’t in the middle of a three point shooting slump. The Warriors went 5-6 this stretch. Consequently, it’d be hard to blame Durant. He had a three game stretch scoring 44, 49, and 51 points. To put it in perspective, that is an average of 48 PTS 10 REB and 7.3 AST on 52-40-95 shooting splits during those 3 games).

It’s probably too late for solo Durant but it’s always fun to think about what it’d be like. That’s it for now, follow me @antimccockiner on Twitter for more great content and thanks for reading.