Nets' Kevin Durant turning in an MVP-like season
The Nets' Kevin Durant, left, protects the ball from the Spurs' Tre Jones during the second half of an NBA game on Monday at Barclays Center. Credit: AP/Frank Franklin II
MIAMI
He didn’t want to be here.
Watching what Kevin Durant brings to the floor every night, it’s easy to forget that he tried his hardest to get out of Brooklyn this past summer.
Durant is a basketball perfectionist and the Nets at the end of last season were about as imperfect as a playoff team can get.
Yet when a trade couldn’t be worked out for Durant, he did more than make the best out of a bad situation; he decided to turn it into a good one.
At age 34, Durant has pushed his team into second place in the Eastern Conference and inserted himself into the thick of the MVP race.
The Kia MVP ladder on NBA.com moved Durant into third place last week, behind Denver’s Nikola Jokic and Boston’s Jayson Tatum. Durant, who had been running a distant eighth, also was the top vote-getter in the Eastern Conference in the first round of All-Star balloting.
No one has done more to turn around the fortunes of his team than Durant has. The Nets (26-13) enter Sunday’s game against Miami having won 17 of their last 19. During that stretch, Durant is averaging 30.9 points, with three games of at least 43.
On the season, Durant is putting up career bests in field-goal percentage (56.8) and free-throw percentage (93.3). His scoring average of 30.0 points per game is the most he’s averaged since he had 32.0 for Oklahoma City in 2013-14. Incidentally, that was the year that he was named MVP.
Pelicans coach Willie Green, an assistant on the Golden State teams that Durant helped lead to NBA titles in 2017 and 2018, believes this could be his best season.
“It’s incredible. I was actually thinking about that today,” Green said. “Not only did he recover from an Achilles tear [three years ago], but then he played in the Olympics that summer right after that. And now he’s having arguably a career year. Extremely difficult to do coming from that injury, and it’s a credit to his work ethic. He’s one of the hardest workers I have been around.”
Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said one of the most amazing things about Durant is that his game continues to get better as he gets older.
“It’s fun to see that you can continue to progress,” Vaughn said. “There’s different elements to his game you haven’t seen previously. The efficiency that is still behind it. The joy that he plays with. At the end of the day, he’d play every minute of the game and he’d play every game. You just don’t have that in the league. It’s a guy who enjoys playing, wants to compete, wants to win but is still very efficient doing it.”
Nets score with Warren
The Nets weren’t sure what to expect when they signed T.J. Warren to a one-year minimum contract this past summer.
Warren essentially hadn’t played in two years as he came back from surgery on his left foot. He continued to rehab early in the season with the Nets, missing the team’s first 23 games. Since then, he has become a reliable weapon off the bench, averaging 9.9 points in 15 games.
In the Nets’ bounce-back win over the Pelicans on Friday, he scored 15 points, including a big three-pointer and a nice reverse layup in the fourth quarter.
Durant is impressed with how quickly Warren has found ways to contribute.
“He’s getting more comfortable with everybody,” Durant said after Friday’s win. “He scores the ball so easily. Sometimes when you score so easily, you want the ball to come around to you all the time. We got a lot of guys that can get a basket here, so sometimes you might have to wait for your opportunities for a couple of possessions even if you make two or three in a row. I think he understands that.
“He was just aggressive all night. Sometimes coming off the bench, you might not get the same opportunities to score the basketball, but he’s one of those guys who can find his way and find the ball and be efficient along the way.”
Claxton's block party
Nic Claxton blocked five Pelican shots Friday, marking the fifth time this season he has had at least five blocks in a game.
The Nets center is averaging 2.6 blocks per game, tying him for first place in the league with Brook Lopez. In the Nets’ last six games, Claxton has had two six-block games and Friday’s five-block game.
“He’s on top of the rim and he’s making guys alter and change their shots,” Durant said. “It’s great and a luxury to have, but you don’t want to depend too much on that. We know Nic is going to be there, but we also want to make Nic’s life easier and not too much pressure on him.”
Barbara Barker is an award-winning columnist and features writer in the sports department at Newsday. She has covered sports in New York for more than 20 years.
