In an episode of Get Up, ESPN analyst and former NBA player Jalen Rose said Kevin Durant has a chance to make his mark and write his own history by leading the Brooklyn Nets to an NBA championship:
“Well, you get to build a nostalgia. We just Kawhi Leonard get to do that with Toronto, winning them their first championship. If you sign with the Knicks, yes they have a storied history… But with the Nets, it's a blank canvas. They just moved to New York City… This is a new history they can get a chance to re-write.”
Durant's shocking move to the Golden State Warriors in the summer of 2016 infuriated many basketball fans around the world. Considered as arguably one of the two best players in the league at the time, he essentially shifted the power of balance in the NBA by joining forces with a team that just previously won a record 73 games in the regular season.
Two championships later, people are still ripping Durant for that move and are still not giving him any credit for his titles, despite winning Finals MVP in both cases. This past summer, however, Durant moved on to the Brooklyn Nets – and once again, he has shifted the power of balance of the NBA, this time to more of an equal state. Certainly, winning a championship with Brooklyn should help shed the sour reputation he got by signing with the Warriors.
The Nets' championship hopes will have to wait for at least one season, however. Durant is already set to miss the entire 2019-20 campaign as he continues to recover from a devastating Achilles injury that he suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals.
However, there is no telling whether Durant can come back as the same player he once was. History has shown that players no longer return to their previous forms after rupturing their Achilles.
Nevertheless, if Durant comes back to even just 90 percent the player he was prior to his injury, that iteration of KD, along with Kyrie Irving, can still lead a team to a championship.
That's how good Kevin Durant is. You know who he is.
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