Kevin Durant at peace with himself… and others

Because the Nets have the best current winning streak (7) and are in the Top 4 in the Eastern Conference, the name of Kevin Durant reappeared in the MVP race. At 34, the two-time NBA champion and three-time Olympic champion has never really lost his game, but like LeBron James, we’ve gotten used to excellence, and his 30.1 points, 6.6 rebounds and 5.3 assists average at 56% on shots go almost unnoticed.

But the most important thing is not the numbers, but his attitude and his smile. Three years after arriving in Brooklyn, and especially a few months after asking to leave, KD seems to have found the joy of playing again.

“How can I continue to get up with this pleasure and this enthusiasm? I had to ask myself this question. Simply because I like to play basketball. It’s as simple as that “, he explains at the Washington Post. “I like when the ball goes into the circle. I like to work on my game. I like to build something with a team. It gives me the necessary joy, a child’s energy when I arrive at training, in a gym. I keep searching for that feeling. And the second it goes away, I guess I’ll stop it all. »

“With the pandemic and my Achilles heel injury, I feel like it was a turning point in my career, in my life”

Kevin Durant recalls that he has come a long way. Rare are the athletes who find their level after a rupture of an Achilles tendon, and to make matters worse, he had to deal with this controversial departure in Brooklyn, then the pandemic.

“With the pandemic and my Achilles heel injury, I feel like it was a turning point in my career, in my life” he continues. “I’m just grateful to be in this current situation. Obviously, we have a lot to do with our team, but I think it’s all part of this journey that excites me. »

Happy in his basketball and his sneakers, Kevin Durant would now like us to focus on his game, and less on his past and his decisions.

“I’m not going to lie…When I was watching the Finals, I knew a lot of people were going to focus on me when the Warriors won…I was there, thinking to myself that I hated the fact that they were winning because everything would be focused on me, rather than them. I thought it was childish because I think you can appreciate everything they’ve done without coming back to me. I was just at home, but I understand that it happens like that. »

“I didn’t even come here to prove to people that I could win on my own”

Listening to him, we feel that this departure from Golden State, and the reactions that followed, still weigh.

“It was another pivotal moment, but I just wanted to play somewhere else. But a lot of people see it as if I was on the hunt for something. And I think it’s probably because I said, ‘I don’t want to be number two anymore. I was number two in high school, during the Draft… But what I had to explain to people was that I had just lost in the final. I wanted to go back and win the Finals. It wasn’t to say, ‘I want to be the best ever. I want to be better than LeBron or [Michael Jordan]’. I don’t care about that. I want to wake up every day and do what I love. And if we win, I’ll know it’s because I gave my best. »

Kevin Durant insists: basketball has never been an individual sport for him and he therefore does not consider above the collective. “Whatever I do on this Earth is not self-centered,” he said. “Even if I win in this team, it will be a contribution from everyone. I never took winning personally, even when I was at Golden State. I could have easily said, ‘Yeah, it’s thanks to me. I have never done that. I didn’t even come here to prove to people that I could win on my own. »

In the same spirit, he chose to put less pressure on his shoulders: “ I have done this before. We want everything, we want to live everything, but it was not good for my mental health to try to endorse everything. »