Kevin Durant Has A Good Reason Why He ‘Highly Doubts’ He Gets A Statue

Dwyane Wade’s new statue outside the Kaseya Center in Miami has garnered a lot of conversation, unfortunately much of it making fun of how it looks nothing like Wade, but it has also sparked some discussion of who will be next to get a statue in the NBA.

LeBron James in Cleveland and Stephen Curry in Golden State are locks, but the other top star from their generation doesn’t expect to end up with a statue anywhere. Kevin Durant is a surefire Hall of Famer with a pair of championships and an MVP award, but he’s been something of a basketball nomad over his career and explained to Kay Adams on “Up and Adams” that, despite Wade saying he deserves a statue, he “highly doubts” that happens.

Durant is nothing if not pragmatic, and he knows that statues are reserved for those with extended runs as the face of a franchise that have own. His longest tenured stop was in Oklahoma City, but he didn’t deliver the Thunder a title and left on bad terms with the organization, bolting for the rival Warriors — and if anyone’s getting a statue in OKC, it’s Russell Westbrook. He won a pair of titles and Finals MVP awards in Golden State, but spent just four years there on a team with Curry as the established face of the franchise. His time in Brooklyn didn’t go according to plan, and he joined a Suns team that, even if they go on to win a championship or two, would build a Devin Booker statue before a Durant one.

I appreciate that Durant doesn’t try to act like this would be some great injustice, but simple states it as a matter of fact. It is, in a way, the price he’s paid for his journey, but he’s also been highly successful at just about every stop, even if some have fallen short of the loftiest expectations. He’ll be good with his Hall of Fame plaque and the respect of his peers, even as his colleagues will surely be getting immortalized in bronze in San Francisco and Cleveland in the not too distant future.