Durant has very quietly had an amazing start to his NBA career and yet there are hardly any mentions of him in discussions for best player in the NBA. Now I know many people will say LeBron is the best but if you compare the stats of the two they are very similar.
Let's compare the two season by season.
In their rookie seasons:
James 20.9 ppg 5.5 RPG 5.9 APG .417 FG% .290 3P%
Durant 20.3 ppg 4.4 RPG 2.4 APG .430 FG% .288 3P%
In their sophmore seasons:
James 27.2 ppg 7.4 RPG 7.2 APG .472 FG% .351 3P%
Durant 26.0 ppg 6.6 RPG 2.9 APG .487 FG% .436 3P%
Clearly Durant is keeping pace with James and is even beating him in some key categories. It must also be mentioned that James plays guard which means he has the ball more often with a better chance to distribute the ball.
Durant also plays unreal defense. He is 6'9, he is mobile, athletic and plays hard every night yet how often do you hear people talk about Durant? As a player he is blossoming in Oklahoma City but is getting no exposure. If Durant played for a big market team I think we would all be getting tired of hearing about him.
Durant is currently 4th in the league in scoring and in the top 10 in 3-point field goal percent yet gets no media attention. He is also leading the Thunder out of the basement and has turned the team from a laughing stock into a team that can no longer be taken lightly.
He is only going to get better with more experience and will eventually start challenging for the scoring title. People need to wake up and realise that Durant is the real deal. The man is a talented basketball player and needs to start getting the respect that his game has earned.
Random Youtube Video (Courtesy of Bryan Cruse):
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