The most impressive thing about KD is that in his career, he always was the best player of his teams. Doesn’t matter if he plays with Westbrook, if he plays with Curry, if he plays with Harden, if he plays with Irving, if he plays with Booker. At the end of the day, Durant always was „the guy“ on his teams. That shows his quality.

I think the 2021 class might not have a clear superstar potential player (like Haliburton or Edwards in 2020), but it still has a nice depth. Quite a few good players with good potential.

Tell it to ESPN (with their stupid Top-100 list)

He isn’t the MVP though.

You don’t even know that Blake Griffin didn‘t do it

But will he be that good in April?

Embiid, because

1. he turns 30 this season. Won‘t be that much more time to have a really good shot at winning a championship (especially as franchise player)

2. he already won an MVP. If you already won MVP but are still ringless, there is extra pressure on you to „deliver“, in order to make your carreer complete

My guy Moe Wagner sneaks into the GOAT conversation.

Wasn’t Durant higher in the MVP race and All NBA in those years too? I think he was in the First Team in 2018 while Curry was in the Second Team, and they both were in the Second Team in the other years.

I would add two other things why I think the NBA is more popular globally.

First: Basketball, while having a lot of rules, is an easy game in its basics. You have to throw the ball through the hoop. Everyone in the world understands that, so everyone can easily watch a Basketball game. American Football is more complicated, a lot of people outside the Us wouldn’t be able to tell what exactly a team has to do in a football game.

Second: Basketball is the most „individual“ team sport. It’s all about the special players, the superstars in the team. So the NBA is much more marketable with certain players, certain faces. Brand recognition. The NFL is more anonymous, more about teams than individuality, which makes it harder to market it in a new market, to make a connection with the people there.

Injuries also played a role.

Maradona though wasn’t exactly what I call a „loved player“. Yes he was loved by the teams he played for, yes he was extremely famous, yes everyone was interested in him, yes everyone loved his style of play. But he wasn’t really loved as a person outside his country and his hardcore fans, he had kind of a crazyness and a theatralic and kind of narcistic „out of touch“ personality that wasn’t exactly liked by many regular soccer fans.

Yeah, thats what I mean. You can try to emulate the game of a star player because you adore his game, but that doesn’t neccessarily mean that you love that guy as a person from a personality standpoint.

I know it’s unfair to bring up his name hear because he had a great overall career and has great longevity as well, but in terms of individual awards, Kevin Durant was kind of an early bloomer.

He was the NBA scoring champ in 2010, 2011, 2012 & 2014, at age 21-25. He never won it after that again. He was in the Top-2 of the MVP Awards in 2010, 2012, 2013 & 2014, at age 21-25. He never was in the Top-3 after that again. He was in the All NBA First Team from 2010-2014, at age 21-25. He reached the First Team only once after that (in 2018 at age 29).

So in terms of individual success, at least in the regular season, KD had an early prime.