Durant: Success makes me more paranoid
There's plenty going right for Kevin Durant right now. He couldn't have had a more emphatic season than he just did. As part of the Golden State Warriors, he won his first ever NBA Finals and was also named Most Valuable Player. And now, in the offseason, on his first visit to India with a trip to the Taj Mahal scheduled on Saturday, it would be understandable that Durant might want to relax.
Except, he can't. All his success has done, he says, is paint a big target on his back.
"It just makes me more paranoid. Hey you don't want nobody to take this spot. So I know a lot of guys out there working their toes off, a lot of teams are making moves to beat us, as they should. It's just driving me a bit more and more crazy to be honest. But that's a good crazy to keep me on edge," Durant said during an interaction at the NBA Academy in Greater Noida.
Indeed, he is keeping an eye out on what his rivals are doing, and how the cards are being dealt out.
"I don't know," Durant says in reply to being questioned whether Warriors are the favourites to retain their title. "You can see some great teams out there. Houston got better. Oklahoma City got better. Boston, Cleveland's always going to be there. San Antonio got better. Clippers I think are going to be a surprising team."
He has got his eye out on how the cards are being dealt this season too. "Gordon Hayward (who moved to Boston Celtic after seven seasons with Utah Jazz) is probably the biggest move because he has been with Utah for so long. Chris Paul going to Houston (from LA Clippers) was huge. Good for him. You can tell he is happy to be there. He is going to be playing with James and the rest of those guys. Yes, when we signed Swaggy P (Nick Young) that was a big move for us. He's a real, real big piece for us."
Despite his move to Golden State, it's hard to see how Young will be able to match up to the magic created between Stephen Curry and Durant, a partnership the latter feels is something special.
"Our IQ for the game and our love for the game and just watching it (is the same). We can appreciate each other's skill sets. I know what Steph does is really great and he has figured me out as well. I think it is going to be even better this year just being more comfortable with him I think. If I can do a better job of freeing him up, we can be dangerous for a very long time," he says.
Durant and Curry have heralded a new form of the game - a fast switching, three-point heavy style where no single player is vital. "That's what makes us unique. Nobody is selfish. Nobody has to have the ball in their hands throughout the game. Nobody has to take all the shots and get all the credit."
He compares this favorably to the style he had grown up watching of big men waiting at the post to hit a two-pointer. "I was watching a Finals' playoff game from 1994 and it was run down, throw the ball to the post for Hakeem Olajuwon or Patrick Ewing," he recalls.
"I think basketball is when everybody is involved, everybody is touching the ball. Everybody is feeling good about themselves. It's an emotional game, it's a charismatic game. Once everybody touches the ball you see a little bit of a difference now when they play. Back then it was a little different.
"Now everybody is touching the ball. Now you see everybody is up on the feet throughout the game. The game is going in the right direction. It is getting better. It's expanding. It's not turning into a two-player game. It is a five-player game. And that's what the game should always be about."
With the Warriors, Durant will likely play exactly that sort of game this season too. The pressure on him is going to be intense and it's hard to say just how Durant could match what was a near-perfect season. Durant, though, has a rather simple target. "Just win another championships," he says. And the way to do that he says is just to stay consistent.
"By that I mean just be mentally geared up and focused from day one. Working on my game every day and then see what happens at the end of the season. It's as simple as that. I just want to stay consistent throughout the rest of my career and the rest of the season and then see what happens."
