On a recent episode of LeBron James and Steve Nash's podcast, "Mind the Game", the duo sat down with Kevin Durant and discussed different aspects of scoring and strategies to do so. James didn't hold back from praising Durant's efficiency as an NBA scorer.
"In a league that doesn't talk about efficiency enough, because I'm one of those efficiency guys. Like I hate going out there just chucking up shots or you know looking at the box score and I was maybe 8/23 or 9/25."
James is also one of those rare players who's maintained above a 50% shooting percentage from the field for the entirety of his career, which is wild seeing as he's attempting shots from all over the court.
"Being efficient is something I've always prided myself on and this guy is, when it comes to three-level scorer, three-pointers, midrange, below the Gary Payton area, below the Malone area, and finishing it's um - we haven't had a scorer that's as equipped as KD in our league...ever."
The fact that the likes LeBron James is saying these kinds of things about KD when he's the one who holds an incredible amount of NBA scoring records is crazy. He goes onto explain how natural of a scorer Durant is from every area of the court.
On the theme of the podast, numbers don't lie, the stats backup everything James said. Over Durant's 17-year career, he's averaging:
- 27.2 PPG
- 7 rebounds
- 4.4 assists
- 50.2% from the field
- 39% from three-point range
- 88.2% from the free-throw line
He's also second to only Steph Curry in true shooting percentage amongst players with over 20,000 career points, and he's No.1 when it comes to shooting atleast 50% from the field and 37% from three-point range.
After tearing his achilles in 2019, some had thought that it would mean the end of his dominant career as one of the NBA's premier shooters, but KD had no plans to slow down. He averaged over 29 PPG in three of the next four seasons after coming back in the 2020/2021 season.
Durant was recently traded to the Houston Rockets and it's going to be interesting to see how he performs in Rockets HC Ime Udoka's offensive system.