Durant

[Howler21]

This may be crazy but i'm seeing Durant getting up to about 235 or 240 and being a more perimeter oriented Kevin Garnett. I'm seeing his peak stat line being about 28ppg, 8rpg, and 6apg.

Nah, his body wouldn't do well with that kind of weight, I think he'll play closer to 225, and he's not a prolific enough passer to rack up that many assists. He's really not a creator though, he's more of a finisher, which is great IMO, I like guys who can get there points without dominating the ball.

I could see him doing 28/8/3 though. Once he really adjusts to the NBA 3, he's going to be a monstrous shooter.

Nice avatar

[Kane2111]

Durant has the potential to be one of the greatest players of all time. What he did at age 19 was severely underrated. They were not even playing him at his natural position. After the allstar break the guy was averaging 20+ on like 50% shooting. If you want a hint at what kind of player Durant will end up, just look at his final game of the season: 42 points, 13 rebounds, 6 assists, 2 blocks 1 steal. It's not at all out of the question that he'll average 35+. I use to talk on some Sonics forums and say that Durant was very likely going to end up being the greatest athlete to EVER play in Seattle (better than Payton, Kemp, Griffey Jr, Arod, Randy Johnson, Ichiro, etc...) The guy is going to be a basketball god. Seriously. In some ways he was further along than either LeBron or Melo at the same age... and MUCH further along than Kobe was. Scary scary scary scary potential. He'll be on that LeBron/Kobe level. You Oklahoma fans probably don't even realize what you are getting yet. I don't blame you... the majority of Seattle fans had no clue either.

As for the comments about "he'll be gone after his rookie contract", don't be so sure. The way rookie contracts work has been changed. Durant will be here for the next 3 seasons under contract. The year after that he will be a restricted free agent. Any contract he gets offered in 2011/12 can be matched by Oklahoma. We're starting to see a lot of teams/rookies avoiding that situation by just extending the player prior to that year. So you'll likely see Durant get a max extension from Oklahoma in the 2010/11 season. I figure at the bare minimum Durant will be here for the next 6 or 7 years (like LeBron in Cleveland). The days of a rookies bolting after 4 years seem to be over. The rules favor the team and their ability to retain their own young stars. Durant will not be able to be an unrestricted free agent for several years. And at that point he will have been under contract for the past 7 (like LeBron) or 8 (like Melo) years... meaning that Oklahoma will have his bird rights on a contract where he'll probably already be making 17 or 18 million a year... so Oklahoma will have the capacity of extending him at massive amounts of money (starting at like 20+ a year) that other teams will not be able to match given the limits of free agent max contracts.

Teams expecting Durant to leave will have to hope that in 7 years Durant forces a sign-and-trade out of Oklahoma.

[ryantony]

Do you think he'll stay in Oklahoma City after his contract is up?

[Joe Jackson]

Wasn't the same thing said about Chris Paul a year ago?

I think the difference is that Chris Paul likes where he is, and doesn't appear to have a hatred for the owner.

That supposed hatred was based on some guy on the radio that said some one else heard from someone else, that Durant said something about Bennett. No one ever came out and said that on the record. The people at the Seattle Times Forum repeated it so many times they believed it was true, imagine that, but no one actually heard the quote.

Yeah, Jack in The Plaidstock needs to trod on back to Portland or up to Seattle with his trolling.
You have to know anything you hear coming out of Seattle is going to be sour grapes after they lost the team from years of neglect and mismanagement.
Its hard to imagine what Plaidstock thinks he doing around here trolling, but he is becoming a little irritating.

[cdash]

Kobe and Lebron dont even average that.

Kobe averaged 35.4 PPG his best season, even Tracy McGrady averaged 32 PPG one year.

Kevin Durant averaged over 20 PPG in a high school kids body with great shooting percentages for a rookie (especially a 19 year old one at that). He scored as good or better than rookies like Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James despite weighing only 215 pounds. He'll never be strong, but when he puts on 10-15 pounds of muscle and continues to refine his game he will be an unstoppable force. One of the best scoring machines of all time.

Yes, but scoring isnt the issue. The issue is whether or not his defense improves considerably, because quite frankly, he was terrible in his rookie year. I suspect a lot of this has to do with the fact that Carlesimo played him out of position, but still, he needs to put some more effort into his defense if OKC is going to be taken seriously in the future.

[McG]

Teams expecting Durant to leave will have to hope that in 7 years Durant forces a sign-and-trade out of Oklahoma.

In the scenario that Durant is going to force a sign-and-trade he would do it before the team option of his rookie contract, when these extensions are normally negotiated. It's true that OKC could technically force him to play 7 years but superstars in the NBA generally get what they want.

[mnkinga23]

The onus on whether or not Durant stays or goes lies on Sam Presti and the ownership of the team. If they are able to build a winning team (and I think that they are well on their way), it is going to be easier to keep Durant, Green, Westbrook, etc. Sure, Oklahoma City can not provide the same opportunities that a Los Angeles or a New York can but as the Clippers and Knicks have shown, a big market doesn't mean that a team will automatically win.