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It has been eight years since Kevin Durant won his second title and second Finals MVP with the Golden State Warriors. For eight years, we have expected him to keep adding to his trophy cabinet. But KD has yet to return to the Finals, and every passing season brings him closer to the end of his career without a third ring. Above all, he remains without a ring as the undisputed leader of his franchise.
Expected to take the highly attractive-on-paper Houston Rockets project to the next level, he is doing what he has always done: scoring with the same effortless precision and knocking down mid-range shots every night. The problem is that, in today’s NBA, that is no longer enough. Teams need a leader, a game-changer, someone who can alter the course of a game. And as time passes, Durant seems to be that player less and less.
Worse still, he picked up an injury when his team needed him most: in the first round of the playoffs, which ended in a first-round exit. Nevertheless, on paper, he remains a devastating weapon. The same ease, the same shots that keep falling after all these years: it is impossible not to consider him part of the elite.
But he is about to enter his 20th NBA season. He will also have a player option at the end of the campaign. And he has already experienced failure in Brooklyn and then Phoenix. It is hard to know how many seasons he still has left in him. But another failure here would cast an even darker shadow over a difficult end to his career. Houston also appears to be behind the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs.
2025/26 Stats: 26 points on 52% shooting, including 41.3% from three-point range (78 games)
Reasonable 2026/27 Target: 30 points, All-NBA First Team candidate