Obviously, a season like 2014/15 doesn’t count, where he was out injured almost the whole season.
Durant joined the SuperSonics in 2007, averaging 20 PPG in his rookie season. He then played for OKC for many years together with Westbrook and Harden. Then he went to Golden State, playing with Curry and Thompson. After that, he joined the Brooklyn Nets and played with James Harden and Kyrie Irving. Lately, he joined the Suns with Devin Booker.
So I would say there are not many players in NBA history who had more star teammates over the years than KD. Can you still say that KD always was the #1 guy at the end of the day? Especially when it goes to the clutch time?
The warriors were always better with lineups featuring Curry and no Durant than vice versa even during the three years KD was on the team. That is backed up both by eye test and actual on off data where they were like +15 net rating if both played, +12 with curry no KD, and +5 with KD no Curry (I could be fudging the numbers slightly but it was something like that where Durant was obviously a great player but the real driver of that team was always curry).
Here is a video from thinking basketball that dives into it more.
Durant was the best player on the Warriors imo and arguably the best player in the world.
The system they used for years was built around Curry, and KD’s a plug and play type of the guy. The warriors had no reason to change their way so it makes sense that they played better in the Curry lineups.
Imo that alone can’t account for the dramatic differences that came about during their years together the final numbers ran up as +2 when KD plays without Steph, +12 when Steph played without Curry, and +15. I think those dramatic swings are more do to Curry being better at elevating everyone around him than anything else. To me KD is the better 1 on 1 player but Steph is the better player for 5 on 5.
Again tho I think we’re talking about two all time greats so I don’t think it’s crazy for anyone to have KD above him those years.
I wouldn’t argue firmly one way or another since we’re talking about two all time great players but imo watching the games and looking at the underlying data Curry was always the real driver of the warriors success. Defenses were also aware of this and spent a lot more attention to Curry.
I think that’s why they were always more successful during those years without Durant than without curry and to me the point was cemented by them winning another championship in pretty convincing fashion without him.
That is perfectly fair although as a person that has watched all of their seasons in the NBA Durant imo was the better player until his many career threatening injuries piled up and he lost a some/a lot of his dexterity, flexibility, agility, bounce, stability, explosiveness, quickness, power and finishing ability.
Durant started out better but Curry has overtaken Durant because he is still a dynamic game changer even though he is older and changed his style some from 2016; while Durant still puts up impressive stats but is much easier to guard, stop, limit and beat now imo.
Although, I wondered had Curry passed Magic Johnson as the best point guard ever when he was winning MVP’s I still think prime pre injuries Kevin Durant was a better player and if I could only have one in their absolute prime on my favorite team it would be Durant although I think Curry is a better player right now.
Because Curry’s backups sucked and were out of the league and when KD was out they had Klay and Draymond step up to replace him.
Yeah I really don’t think that was the reason. KD was playing with Klay and Draymond too it’s not like those guys were coming in for him. I think Steph really elevates the other guys around him (including KD) better which is why the team as a whole played better with him.
Here is a video that gets into some more of the film and numbers. To summarize the video; defenses were always much more keyed in on Curry, KD had significantly more efficient scoring efforts when he played with curry than without but Curry was mostly the same with or without, warriors were +2.4 if KD played without Curry vs +12 if Curry played without KD, and +15 if they both played so obviously better but the real driver to their success is curry.