Kevin Durant, now in his 17th NBA season and making his 14th career NBA All-Star appearance tonight, was posed with an interesting question during yesterday’s All-Star media availability.
Durant was asked by ESPN’s Tim Bontemps with him, LeBron James and Stephen Curry being the faces of the NBA for almost a decade now if he sees any obvious candidates from this younger generation who will “take on the mantle from you guys when you’re eventually done playing.”
“I think each era has five, six, seven guys that help carry the game forward, push the game forward,” Durant responded. “More than just Steph, LeBron and myself. There’s James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Kawhi Leonard, Paul George, a lot of these guys who have inspired the next generations of hoopers to want to be professionals. There’s more than just a few guys.
“I look around the league and you see, I’m going to miss a lot of guys, but you see, Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander), Ant (Anthony Edwards), Book (Devin Booker), Luka (Doncic), Tyrese Maxey, Tyrese Haliburton. There’s so many guys that are inspiring the next generation of hoopers after them to become basketball players that you can’t just pinpoint it to one or two guys. It’s about pushing the game forward, setting a different standard (of) how we play. And these guys are doing it right now.”
All of these players will be playing alongside the 35-year-old Durant in tonight’s All-Star Game. Durant’s time as one of the faces of the NBA, certainly has not faded away yet, as he is averaging 28.2 points on 53.8% shooting, 6.6 rebounds and 5.7 assists for the 33-22 Suns.
Of the mentioned players, Gilgeous-Alexander (third) and Doncic (fifth) have the best odds on most MVP leaderboards right now. Durant is ninth on most Sportsbooks.
Durant had more context on his comments about young players in a Washington Post article released couple days ago:
“Those older guys didn’t want to just say, ‘Here, young’un, you the next one up.’ You had to try to take that from them,” Durant says. “I’m not going out there and relying on my name and what I’ve done in the past to get that respect. I respect that about the young players. They don’t give a s— about what you did in the past. It’s about today. So that keeps me on point.”
Many of these players, including Edwards and Booker, have called Durant their favorite player.
Booker, making his fourth appearance in the All-Star Game tonight, gets to witness Durant’s greatness every day, but others like Edwards are not as fortunate. Nonetheless, Durant has been willing to share a lot with the younger generation given his respect level for them.
