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Kevin Durant's commitment to defense took off before the cameras and commentators were there to laud him for it. Despite setting a career-high in blocks last season with 1.6 per game as a first-year member of the Golden State Warriors, Durant's new-found motivation for defense took off while he was still in Oklahoma City.
“I've been a scorer my whole life,” Durant told ESPN's Chris Haynes. “I've been a one-on-one player my whole life. All I've thought about in the past was different ways to score, rather than different ways to impact the game. Since 2012-13, I've been trying to figure out ways to impact the game outside of scoring.
“Defense started to creep in there probably two years before I got to the Warriors. Defense started to become a focal point for me where I wanted to be trusted. I didn't want to be the guy where all the film clips are about how they back-doored me, or how someone drove around me or how I'm not contesting shots. I was more so just nervous about being called out during film sessions. That's why I wanted to get better.”
This disposition to add something new to his game took time, now a five-year process to tapping into his defensive potential as a long-limbed, athletic small forward that can block shots and get on passing lanes with ease.
Durant has been an NBA MVP, a four-time scoring champion, and an eight-time All-Star, but he's yet to capture a single defensive honor — noting he would “like to be an All-NBA defender” at some point in his career.
For now, his fear of failure is the driving force behind his second-best shot-blocking mark at 2.45 rejections per game, only one behind Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert.
“I just want to be counted on by my coaches and my teammates in those situations,” he said. “I don't want my coach to have to pull me out the game in situations in the fourth quarter because I can't play defense and then they need to go to a defense-offense [substitution pattern]. I don't want to be that player. I never wanted to be that player. So that's what I feared more than anything.”
Coming to the Warriors, a team that has prided itself in having a never-ending arsenal of two-way players, it created the perfect opportunity for Durant to tap into his defensive talents, knowing he'll be kept accountable by everyone else in the roster.
“It's contagious,” Durant said. “If you're seeing that all the time, and it's creating points for you, that s*** is fun. It's fun when you get your teammates involved on both ends of the floor and you're all as one out there on the basketball court. You don't want to be the liability, and that's what I'm fighting against.”
