List KD best to worst years (playoffs included)

[TroubleS0me]

Last season or playoffs we all saw KD played poorly vs Celtics
Got me to thinking where 21-22 KD rank among his others years
and now he wants to be traded

For example

1. 17 KD( both regular season + playoffs)
2. 18 KD (both regular season + playoffs)
3. 14 KD

[Stan]

I'm honestly not even including the Warrior years since that was the equivalent to playing the game on easy mode. Of his non Warrior years, his best years based strictly on how well he played

2021
2014
2012
2013
2022

I know he only played 32 games in 2021 and lost in the 2nd round, but that Bucks series was frankly the best I've ever seen Durant play. He legitimately looked unstoppable, and had a GOAT level performance in Game 5, then dropped 48 in Game 7, coming a toe away from knocking off the future champs virtually singlehanded.

2014 was by far his best regular season, playoffs were kinda shaky.

2012 easily his best playoff run in OKC.

2013 was another excellent season which got derailed due to Westbrook's injury.

2022 was actually a very good regular season with a catastrophic postseason, but I still like this more than 2016 or his pre 2012 OKC days.

[Statlanta]

*Healthy 2015
2014
2016
2017
2013
2018
2022
2012
2019
2021
2011
2010
2009

[f4p]

2014 - feels iffy because the playoffs weren't amazing but the regular season was incredible. i'm a big playoffs guy for all-time lists but if i'm just ranking seasons then i feel like the regular season has to mean more than it does for my all-time list.

2012 - great regular season and great playoffs, amazing in the finals

2021 - 2nd round is too good to put any lower

2019 - incredible scoring binge in the first 2 rounds. played 12 minutes in the finals and provided all of the margin of victory for that game.

2013 - very good regular season, pretty good playoffs after westbrook injury

2017 - cheating but still very good

2016 - i've been to his BBRef page quite a bit, but until someone posted it in another thread yesterday, i somehow had missed how disastrous his 2016 playoff stats were. i thought 20.3 PER was a typo. playoff dropoffs of -7.9 PER, -9.2 TS% (!!), and -0.140 WS48 (a little skewed due to competition) are incredible. steph with a -9 PER dropoff (weirdly from the same year) is one of the few bigger dropoffs i've seen (unless you count durant again in 2010 in only 6 playoff games, but he was only 21 years old). still, KD has to get some credit for being on a team that beat a +10 SRS team and nearly beat another.

2018 - he and steph almost lost to the rockets if not for a lucky injury.

2011 - pretty good in regular season and playoffs but i don't think he was as good as 2018.

[Cavsfansince84]

*Healthy 2015
2014
2016
2017
2013
2018
2022
2012
2019
2021
2011
2010
2009

This is about how I would rank them. The issue with 2017-2022 is a combination of emphasis on just playoffs while mostly playing with Steph& co, worse regular seasons and small sample sizes such as the Bucks series while missing huge chunks of games in the rs. I also think the overall climate works better for him and most wings now as compared to 2012-2016. 2014 was I think his real peak even though his playoffs weren't that great.

[TroubleS0me]

*Healthy 2015
2014
2016
2017
2013
2018
2022
2012
2019
2021
2011
2010
2009

hmm his 14-15 season, how come?

[OhayoKD]

I'm honestly not even including the Warrior years since that was the equivalent to playing the game on easy mode. Of his non Warrior years, his best years based strictly on how well he played

2021
2014
2012
2013
2022

I know he only played 32 games in 2021 and lost in the 2nd round, but that Bucks series was frankly the best I've ever seen Durant play. He legitimately looked unstoppable, and had a GOAT level performance in Game 5, then dropped 48 in Game 7, coming a toe away from knocking off the future champs virtually singlehanded.

2014 was by far his best regular season, playoffs were kinda shaky.

2012 easily his best playoff run in OKC.

2013 was another excellent season which got derailed due to Westbrook's injury.

2022 was actually a very good regular season with a catastrophic postseason, but I still like this more than 2016 or his pre 2012 OKC days.

think 2012 is pretty overrated here. He had his best scoring numbers, but his usage was lower than baby westbrook and his playmaking numbers were awful. Kd was probably just effecient because of a limited role relative to later versions.

Saying he nearly knocked off the champs single handedly is a stretch(he had kyrie for half the series and harden was a decoy for two games) but that might be his most impressive playoff series all thigns considered. Though he did pretty vs the spurs in 2016.

[OhayoKD]

*Healthy 2015
2014
2016
2017
2013
2018
2022
2012
2019
2021
2011
2010
2009

This is about how I would rank them. The issue with 2017-2022 is a combination of emphasis on just playoffs while mostly playing with Steph& co, worse regular seasons and small sample sizes such as the Bucks series while missing huge chunks of games in the rs. I also think the overall climate works better for him and most wings now as compared to 2012-2016. 2014 was I think his real peak even though his playoffs weren't that great.

i wonder why he was never able to replicate 2014 rs results. was it because he was saving himself for the playoffs or because the league adapted

[Cavsfansince84]

i wonder why he was never able to replicate 2014 rs results. was it because he was saving himself for the playoffs or because the league adapted

Few reasons I would say:
1. In 2014 he was allowed to be more of a focal point due to WB's injury and he was still young enough to be able do it for a full season.
2. After the 2015 injury I don't think he could replicate it even if he wanted to over a full rs.
3. From 2017 on he was on teams where he could coast more and save himself for the playoffs since he mostly just cared about rings.

[OhayoKD]

i wonder why he was never able to replicate 2014 rs results. was it because he was saving himself for the playoffs or because the league adapted

Few reasons I would say:
1. In 2014 he was allowed to be more of a focal point due to WB's injury and he was still young enough to be able do it for a full season.
2. After the 2015 injury I don't think he could replicate it even if he wanted to over a full rs.
3. From 2017 on he was on teams where he could coast more and save himself for the playoffs since he mostly just cared about rings.

i'm curious if people ligitmately thought he might be a goat-challenger during the 2014 regular season.

[Cavsfansince84]

i'm curious if people ligitmately thought he might be a goat-challenger during the 2014 regular season.

Not quite goat challenger imo but there was legit talk during that season that he might have surpassed LeBron. The playoffs sort of shifted it back to LeBron and then KD's injury the next year sort of ended that talk but KD was insane over the final 40 games in 2014. Something like 34/9/5 on incredible efficiency.

[OhayoKD]

i'm curious if people ligitmately thought he might be a goat-challenger during the 2014 regular season.

Not quite goat challenger imo but there was legit talk during that season that he might have surpassed LeBron. The playoffs sort of shifted it back to LeBron and then KD's injury the next year sort of ended that talk but KD was insane over the final 40 games in 2014. Something like 34/9/5 on incredible efficiency.

tbh it's kind of crazy how kd was the undisputed #2 less than 10 years back considering how many kd-level or kd+ talents we have in the league right now. Maybe league "quality" improves faster than people think it does

[falcolombardi]

i'm curious if people ligitmately thought he might be a goat-challenger during the 2014 regular season.

Not quite goat challenger imo but there was legit talk during that season that he might have surpassed LeBron. The playoffs sort of shifted it back to LeBron and then KD's injury the next year sort of ended that talk but KD was insane over the final 40 games in 2014. Something like 34/9/5 on incredible efficiency.

tbh it's kind of crazy how kd was the undisputed #2 less than 10 years back considering how many kd-level or kd+ talents we have in the league right now. Maybe league "quality" improves faster than people think it does

Top talent in any given season is such a small sample size of players that it is probably more variable than people think, average league talent is probably more slow changing

2012-2014 was kind of a transtion period for the league

The late 90's generation (duncan, kobe, dirk, garnett) faded out) and players from lebron generation like howard and wade declined relatively early compares to paul and james

Around the same time guys like curry, harden, kawhi and davis were just coming into their own

[DraymondGold]

Question for people -- usually in these discussions, people tend to be lower on "incomplete seasons" where there's a good playoff run without a good regular season. Yet I never see people care about this with KD.

KD played just 35 games in 2021. Sure he had a good 7 Game run in the playoffs.... but he played just. 35. games.
In 2022, KD played a "whopping" 55 games.... which is less than basically every MVP ever.

How much should he be docked for these weaker regular seasons? How much do we think his better 21 playoff performance came from the fact that he was so fresh and rested after the regular season?

[Cavsfansince84]

Question for people -- usually in these discussions, people tend to be lower on "incomplete seasons" where there's a good playoff run without a good regular season. Yet I never see people care about this with KD.

KD played just 35 games in 2021. Sure he had a good 7 Game run in the playoffs.... but he played just. 35. games.
In 2022, KD played a "whopping" 55 games.... which is less than basically every MVP ever.

How much should he be docked for these weaker regular seasons? How much do we think his better 21 playoff performance came from the fact that he was so fresh and rested after the regular season?

I think his 20-22 seasons get a lot of criticism when compared to other players and his other seasons on this board. You see it just in this thread. I think the general media has definitely sort of ignored that while talking up his playoffs though.

[OhayoKD]

Not quite goat challenger imo but there was legit talk during that season that he might have surpassed LeBron. The playoffs sort of shifted it back to LeBron and then KD's injury the next year sort of ended that talk but KD was insane over the final 40 games in 2014. Something like 34/9/5 on incredible efficiency.

tbh it's kind of crazy how kd was the undisputed #2 less than 10 years back considering how many kd-level or kd+ talents we have in the league right now. Maybe league "quality" improves faster than people think it does

Top talent in any given season is such a small sample size of players that it is probably more variable than people think, average league talent is probably more slow changing

2012-2014 was kind of a transtion period for the league

The late 90's generation (duncan, kobe, dirk, garnett) faded out) and players from lebron generation like howard and wade declined relatively early compares to paul and james

Around the same time guys like curry, harden, kawhi and davis were just coming into their own

maybe, but idk there's been any year like the last couple tbh. I feel like all of giannis, luka, jokic, embid, ad, lebron, kd, and curry would be perceived as game breaking generational talents if you teleported them into past eras. Go a year back and you can probably throw in Harden too. The 20's have been crazy