One of Kevin Durant's most enduring basketball legacies is his unflinching confidence.
He's easily the most gifted seven-foot scorer of all time, with the defensive chops and overall feel to thrive in pretty much any role imaginable. But how he's persevered through multiple career-threatening injuries and a pair of of the most infamous free-agent exits in league history speaks to the self-fulfilling braggadocio of a player who's never believed he's anything less than one of the best to ever pick up a basketball.
Even a consensus all-timer like Durant, though, has his own personal favorites in the discussion for basketball's greatest player ever. Believe it or not, he's fully confident they hold him in similar esteem.
In a sprawling feature story on the Brooklyn Nets superstar by Logan Murdock of The Ringer, Durant waxed poetic on what it meant for him to be included among the NBA's ranking of the 75 best players in league history at All-Star weekend. Unlike the vast majority of those legends, Durant has a case alongside the likes of Michael Jordan and LeBron James as a top-10 player of all-time.
His most convincing way of making it? The reality that Jordan and James would no doubt pick him in a 5-on-5 matchup of basketball's best of the best.
“I put it like this,” he says. “If let’s say Michael Jordan and LeBron James had to pick and we were playing a five-on-five game, they’re picking me. I’m going to be a part of that 10 that’s playing in that game. That’s how I feel.”
No one without an agenda will argue otherwise.
There isn't a non-big who'd be definitively more deserving of being picked first in that theoretical pickup game than Durant. Magic Johnson and Kobe Bryant have arguments, but Durant's scalability on offense and versatility on the other would make him a more seamless co-star for Jordan and James than either Los Angeles Lakers legend. The same holds true for Larry Bird.
At 33, playing in his 15th NBA season, Durant should be slowing down. Instead, he's as close to his MVP and title-winning peaks with the Oklahoma City and Golden State Warriors as could possibly be expected. How many players in the league would you take in a seven-game series over Durant right now?
That the answer could be none is even further for justification for Durant's take as one of the top-10 players ever—not to mention the outside chance of him finishing his career toward the very top of that pecking order, just behind Jordan and James.
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