OK, let's get into it. It is January 18th, 2026,
and we are just barely into the new year and
the NBA history books are already getting a major
rewrite. Oh, yeah. If you've been on your phone
at all in the last week or so, you know exactly
what we're talking about. It's the kind of news
that makes you actually stop scrolling. Exactly.
We're talking, of course, about Kevin Durant,
the Slim Reaper, easy money sniper. Whatever
you want to call him. As of January 9th, which
was, what, just over a week ago, he has officially
passed. Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt Chamberlain. For
seventh place on the NBA's all -time scoring
list. It's just a wild sentence to say out loud.
I mean, passing Wilt in any category feels like
you've done something impossible. Wilt's records
are supposed to be, you know, untouchable. Right.
He's the guy in the black and white photos holding
up the piece of paper that says 100. Exactly.
So to pass him in something as fundamental as
scoring, that just, it cements you in a different
tier. You're one of the greatest offensive weapons
the game has ever seen, period. But the context
of how it happened is so, it's so perfectly Kevin
Durant. He hits this massive historic milestone.
In a loss. Of course he did. A loss to the Portland
Trailblazers. He drops 30, grabs 12 rebounds.
He's incredibly efficient, like always. But the
team still loses. It felt like, I don't know,
a perfect little snapshot of his whole career.
It really did. Undeniable, unbelievable individual
greatness. But it's always surrounded by something
complex. Or difficult. Or just plain unlucky
sometimes. It's the KB story. And that's really
our mission for this deep dive. We're not just
looking at one box score. We want to unpack how
this... You know, skinny kid from PG County became
one of the most efficient nomadic and let's be
honest, controversial scorers in the history
of the sport. And we've got a ton of source material
to work with. We're digging into the biographical
stuff, career stats from the NBA, his college
year, which was just, I mean, insane. Oh, that
one year at Texas. Yeah. And his Olympic records,
which are a whole other level of dominant. And
even his business side with 35 Ventures. We want
to understand the whole picture. I think the
place to start has to be just the sheer physical
reality of him. The anomaly. You just look at
Kevin Durant, even today, and he doesn't quite
make sense. No, he really doesn't. He's a legitimate
seven footer. At least. Who moves like a point
guard. The handle, the fluidity, the coordination.
It's not supposed to exist in a body of that
size. Usually you get one or the other. You get
the size or you get the skill. He somehow got
both. It's a glitch in the matrix. But the why
of KD, the reason we're talking about him passing
willed, it isn't just that he's tall and can
shoot over people. Right. It's the efficiency.
That's the word. It's all about the efficiency.
We're going to get deep into the 50 -40 -90 club
stuff later and how he kind of unbelievably improved
on that. But you can't tell a KD story without,
well, without the noise. The psychological journey,
as you put it. Right. The guy who is famously
active on Twitter, the guy who battles with the
media, who seems to feel every single comment
and who has never. ever been afraid to pack his
bags and move if the basketball situation wasn't
perfect for him. He's not loyal to his city.
He's loyal to the game. So let's rewind. Let's
go all the way back. Before the rings, before
the burner accounts, before this whole Houston
Rockets chapter, back to D .C. and Prince George's
County, Maryland. PG County. Yeah. For anyone
who doesn't follow grassroots basketball, you
have to understand that PG County is basically
a basketball factory. It might be the most fertile
ground for producing NBA talent per capita on
the entire planet. It's a hotbed. Super competitive.
If you can make a name for yourself there, you're
ready for anything. Absolutely. So he's born
Kevin Wayne Durant, September 29, 1988, grew
up on the outskirts of D .C. And, you know, his
family life was a little complicated. His father
left when he was an infant. Right. They did reconcile
later when Kevin was around 13. But in those
really formative years, it was his mom, Wanda,
and his grandmother, Barbara, who raised him.
And we all know Wanda, the real MVP. Yeah. That
speech still gets me every time I see it. But
there's a detail from his early life, his early
basketball life, that I think explains so much
about him. It's the number on his jersey, number
35. Yeah, this is the key to understanding him,
I think. It's the emotional core of his story.
It's not just a random number. Not at all. So
when he's playing AAU ball for the PG Jaguars.
His coach was this guy named Charles Craig. And
Coach Craig wasn't just a coach. You know, he
was a mentor, a father figure, the guy who made
sure kids had a ride home, who bought them dinner.
He was everything. And Charles Craig was murdered
when he was 35 years old. Oh, man, that's just.
That's heavy. It's unbelievably tragic. And it
happened right as Durant was really starting
to become who he was going to be. So he made
a promise. He decided he would wear number 35
to honor the age his mentor was when he died.
So every time he puts on that jersey. He's carrying
that legacy. He wore it in high school. He wore
it at Texas. He wore it for almost his entire
NBA career until recently. It's a memorial. It's
not about him. It's about honoring Coach Craig.
It just adds this whole other layer of depth
to him. It really does. It reframes everything.
Now, physically, you mentioned he was always
tall, right? This wasn't some late growth spurt.
Oh, no. He was already six feet tall in middle
school. Six feet. And then his senior year of
high school, he apparently grew another five
inches over the course of the season. That's
insane. Which brings us to one of my favorite,
like, running gags of his entire career. the
height listing. For years and years, Kevin Durant
was officially listed at 6 '9". Which was the
most obvious lie in the entire league. Everyone
knew it. You'd see him standing next to guys
like DeMarcus Cousins, who are listed at 6 '11",
and KD is looking him right in the eye. Or even
looking down on him sometimes. He finally admitted
it in, I think it was 2016. He was like, OK,
yeah, I'm seven feet tall in shoes. But his reason
for lying was actually kind of brilliant. It
was strategic. Totally strategic. He said he
thought it was cool to be listed as a six foot
nine small forward because if he was listed at
seven foot, coaches would try to make him a power
forward. They'd stick him in the post and tell
him to bang against the big guy. And he knew
that wasn't his game. He knew exactly who he
was. He wanted to be on the perimeter, handling
the ball, shooting threes. So he lied about his
height to protect his own play style from being
pigeonholed by coaches. It's actually incredibly
savvy. So he dominates high school, becomes a
McDonald's All -American, and then he heads to
the University of Texas for what would be one
of the most incredible one and done seasons we
have ever seen. The 2006 -2007 season, I mean,
it's legendary. We're used to freshmen dominating
now. You know, it happens. But back then, for
a freshman to do what he did, it was revolutionary.
The numbers are just dumb. 25 .8 points and 11
.1 rebounds a game. As a teenager in the Big
12 Conference, against grown men, He became the
first freshman ever to win the Naismith College
Player of the Year Award. The first one ever.
Think about all the legends who went through
college. And he was the first. He swept all the
awards. But there's a huge what if connected
to his college career. Right. The one and done
rule had just been put in place. Exactly. And
Durant has said multiple times, if that rule
didn't exist, he would have gone straight to
the NBA from high school. No question. Like LeBron.
Like Kobe. Yep. And get this, he's on record
saying his favorite team growing up was the Toronto
Raptors. He loved Vince Carter. He said he probably
would have ended up in Toronto. Wow. Kevin Durant?
A Raptor from day one. That changes everything.
The entire landscape of the league for the next
two decades is completely different. It's a huge
sliding doors moment, but instead he has that
one incredible year at Texas. They retire his
number 35 jersey almost immediately, and he enters
the 2007 NBA draft. Where he famously goes number
two. The Portland Trailblazers take Greg Oden
with the first pick. Oof. A tough one for Portland
fans still. Odin was a phenomenal prospect, but
the injuries just, they were brutal. So Durant
lands with the Seattle Supersonics at number
two. A city with such a great basketball history,
and they get this new phenom. And he was good
right away. It wasn't a project. He wins Rookie
of the Year, averages over 20 points a game as
a teenager. The only other players to do that
at the time were LeBron and Carmelo Anthony.
That's the company he was keeping from his very
first season. But that whole Seattle era, it
feels like a dream now. It was so short. It was
a blink. The team relocates to Oklahoma City.
The Sonics are gone. The Thunder are born. And
this is where KD goes from being a great young
player to being an unstoppable offensive force.
Those early OKC years were so exciting. Him,
Westbrook, Harden. They were so young and so
good. And Durant was the leader. I mean, just
look at the scoring. Between 2010 and 2014, so
a five -year span, he wins the scoring title
four times. Four times in five years. That is
just, it's absurd dominance. But I really want
to focus on one season in particular there, the
2012 -2013 season, because this is where he separates
himself from just being a great scorer and becomes
this historically efficient player. This is the
year he joins the 50 -40 -90 club. Okay, so let's
break this down. People hear 50 -40 -90 all the
time. But they might not grasp just how ridiculously
hard that is to do. Why is it the holy grail
of shooting? Right. So it means you have to shoot
at least 50 % from the field, 40 % from the three
-point line, and 90 % from the free -throw line
for an entire season. And the reason it's so
hard is that those skills usually work against
each other, right? Exactly. A big man like a
traditional center might shoot 60 percent from
the field because he's just dunking all the time.
But he's not shooting threes and he's probably
a terrible free throw shooter. Sure. Then you
have a three point specialist. He might hit the
40 percent from three and 90 percent from the
line. But his overall field goal percentage will
be lower because so many of his shots are difficult
long range jumpers. He's not getting easy buckets
at the rim. Oh, to do all three at once. It means
you've mastered. every single aspect of scoring.
You can finish inside like a big, shoot from
outside like a specialist, and you have the mental
focus and perfect mechanics to almost never miss
from the free throw line. And in 2013, Durant
becomes the youngest player in NBA history to
do it. It's just, it's a perfect season of scoring.
And that leads directly into his MVP year, 2014,
averaging 32 a game. That year, we also get this
really ugly moment that kind of foreshadows the
complicated relationship he would have with the
media. Ugh, Sarah Unreliable. I still can't believe
that was a real headline in his local paper.
The Oklahoman, yeah. It was during a playoff
series against Memphis, and to be fair, he was
struggling. The Grizzlies were a tough, physical
team. Tony Allen, the grindfather, was just making
his life miserable. But to call your city's MVP
Mr. Unreliable. on the front page of the sports
section. It's a betrayal, right? That has to
be the moment where he starts thinking, what
am I doing here? Do these people really have
my back? He responded on the court, obviously,
but then you get that MVP speech. The real MVP
speech about his mom. So emotional, so raw, and
it just showed you the two sides of him, this
killer on the court, but this deeply sensitive
person off of it. He heard the noise, he read
the headline, and it clearly hurt him. It was
a crack in the foundation. But even with the
MVP, they just couldn't get over the hump. They
made the finals once, lost to Miami, but they
never got back. Which brings us to 2016. The
moment that, for a lot of Thunder fans, is still
an open wound. The Western Conference Finals.
They're playing the Golden State Warriors, the
team that just won 73 games, the best regular
season record of all time. And OKC is up 3 -1
in this series. They have them on the ropes.
They have them dead to rights. One more win,
and they're in the NBA Finals. And they just...
They collapsed. They lose three straight games.
Durant plays well in game seven, but it's not
enough. And that loss changes the course of NBA
history. Because what happens next is the biggest
bombshell in modern free agency. Yeah. July 4th,
2016. He drops an article on the Players Tribune,
my next chapter, and he announces he's leaving
Oklahoma City. to join the 73 -win Golden State
Warriors, the team that had just eliminated him.
I remember the internet just absolutely exploding.
It was pure chaos. People were literally burning
his jersey. The snake emoji was born. It was
pure, unfiltered rage from the entire NBA world.
And you can understand why. It felt like a shortcut.
It felt like he was taking the easy way out,
joining the superpower that was already built.
But you have to look at it from his perspective,
too. Right. There was another side to it, the
basketball side. People like Ben Goliver made
this point at the time, and I think it's aged
really well. He said Durant chose basketball
perfection. In OKC, the offense was clunky. It
was him and Westbrook taking turns. The floor
was cramped. He was always getting double teamed.
Constantly. But in Golden State. He saw Steph
Curry and Klay Thompson running around. The ball
was moving. The floor was wide open. It was beautiful
basketball. He didn't want to just be the guy
who had to do everything himself. He wanted to
play in a system that made the game easy and
beautiful. And he was right. You can't argue
with the results. I mean, from a pure basketball
standpoint, it was the right move. It was validated
immediately. They win the championship in 2017.
They win again in 2018. Two championships, two
finals MVPs for Durant. The basketball they played
was... It was breathtaking. It might be the best
basketball we've ever seen. And he had that one
iconic moment in the 2017 finals. Game three
in Cleveland. Close game. He just calmly brings
the ball up the court. And pulls up for a three
-pointer right over LeBron James. Yeah. In his
building. Dagger. That was the moment where he
basically announced to the world, I'm the best
player alive right now. He wasn't riding their
coattails. He was the final piece that made them
unbeatable. But even the greatest dynasties eventually
crumble. And this one started to crack in a very
public, very ugly way. November 2018. The infamous
on -court argument with Draymond Green. Right.
Draymond basically called him out about his upcoming
free agency. And according to reports, he said
something like, we won without you. We don't
need you. And you can't take that back once that's
out there. The trust is broken. It confirmed
all of Durant's insecurities about being there,
that he was always going to be the outsider,
the hired gun, and then the ultimate price, the
2019 finals against Toronto. He had been out
with a calf strain. The Warriors are losing the
series. He feels the pressure to come back and
save them. He comes back for game five, and for
the first quarter, he looks like the old KD.
He has 11 points in 12 minutes. He's cooking.
It looks like he's going to will them to a win.
And then, the play. He tries to make a move on
Serge Ibaka. And he just goes down, no contact.
You could see it on his face immediately. He
knew. A torn Achilles. The worst injury in basketball.
It's the one that robs you of your athleticism.
It's ended so many careers. And just like that,
the Warriors' hope for a three -peat was over,
and so was Durant's time in Golden State. He
literally tore his body apart for them, and it
was the end of the line. So he's now a free agent,
facing a year of rehab. And he makes another
shocking move. He heads east. This is the Brooklyn
experiment. He signs this massive four -year...
A $164 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets, along
with his friend, Kyrie Irving. And everyone knows
he's going to miss the entire first season. They
were willing to pay him max money just to sit
on the bench and get healthy for a full year.
That's how good he is. And when he comes back,
they go all in. They trade for James Harden.
So now you have Durant, Harden, and Kyrie. On
paper, it's maybe the most talented offensive
trio ever assembled. On paper being the key words
there that just, it never clicked. It was a mess.
Injuries, Kyrie's vaccine status, Harden wanting
out. They almost never played together at full
strength. But we have to talk about that one
moment. The 2021 playoffs. The Milwaukee series.
This is the ultimate what if of his entire career
for me. I agree. It's game seven of the Eastern
Conference semifinals. Kyrie is hurt. James Harden
is playing on a torn hamstring. He can barely
move. So it's basically Kevin Durant against
the entire Bucs team. And he was magnificent.
He plays every single second of the game. Every
second of overtime, too. He drops 48 points,
which was a game seven record. And then we get
to the end of regulation. The shot. Oh, man.
The shot. Nets are down by two. Durant. gets
the ball, makes a move, fades away from the corner
for what looks like the series -winning three
-pointer at the buzzer, and it goes in, swish,
the building erupts, it's over. But it wasn't.
His foot, his big -ass foot, as he called it
later, his toe was just grazing the three -point
line. By millimeters, the refs review it, they
change it to a two -pointer, the game is tied.
And they go to overtime, and KD is just completely
gassed. He's nothing left. Nothing. The Nets
lose. The Bucks go on to win the championship.
If Durant's shoe was a size smaller or if he
takes that shot from an inch further back, Brooklyn
probably wins the title. And that entire era
is viewed as a massive success instead of a failure.
It's just. History turns on an inch. And after
that heartbreak, the whole thing in Brooklyn
just fell apart. He asked for a trade. They finally
granted in February 2023, and he's sent to the
Phoenix Suns. And Phoenix gave up everything
for him. McCall Bridges, Cam Johnson, a whole
treasure chest of draft picks. They pushed all
their chips in. Now, at this point, he's in his
mid -30s, coming off an Achilles tear. You'd
expect him to slow down. But statistically...
He did something that makes no sense. It defies
sports science. In that season, he split between
Brooklyn and Phoenix. He had a 55 -40 -90 season.
Wait, hold on. We said 50 -40 -90 was the holy
grail. He shot 55 % from the field? 56%, actually.
Over 55. He's the first player in NBA history
to hit those benchmarks. He lost a bit of his
vertical explosion, sure, but he replaced it
with just pure surgical skill. His mid -range
jumper became the most reliable shot in the entire
league. But the team's success didn't come with
it. No, it didn't. They lost to the Nuggets in
the 23 playoffs, who went on to win the title,
and then 2024 was a complete catastrophe. They
got swept in the first round. A sweep for a team
with that much talent and that high of a payroll
is just, it's a disaster. And then the injury
luck runs out again. March 2025, he suffers a
season -ending ankle injury, and the Suns miss
the playoffs completely. The whole Phoenix experiment
was over before it really even began. Which brings
us to today, the current season. 2025 -2026.
And Kevin Durant is now a Houston Rocket. How
did that even happen? The trade of the summer.
It was a massive seven -team deal. Seven teams.
The largest trade in league history. It was a
complete roster shakeup across the NBA. And the
end result was KD landing in Houston on a big
contract extension. And his debut was so weirdly
on -brand for him. Oh, it was bizarre. It was
against his old team, OKC. The game goes to double
overtime. And late in the game, Durant tries
to call a timeout when the Rockets don't have
any left. The Chris Webber moment. Exactly. Total
flashback. But somehow the refs completely missed
it. They didn't call the technical foul, but
it didn't even matter because he fouled out on
the next play and the Rockets lost anyway. Just
a strange, chaotic start. But he found his rhythm.
And this past month, January 2026, has been huge.
The revenge tour is in full swing. It really
is. On January 5th, he hits a game winner against
Phoenix, his most recent team. And after the
game, he basically said he felt like they made
him the scapegoat for all their problems. He
embraced being the villain again and he stuck
the dagger in them. And then just a few days
later, he passes Wilt. Which is where we started
this whole conversation. Right. It's just been
a history -making month for him, solidifying
his legacy, even as he's on, what, his sixth
team? Now, we can't do this whole deep dive without
talking about his international career. Because
you can make a very, very strong case that he's
the greatest men's Olympic basketball player
of all time. I don't even think it's a case anymore.
I think it's just a fact. He has four gold medals.
Four. 2012, 2016, 2020, 2024. He's the first
male athlete in any team sport to win four Olympic
golds. And he's not just along for the ride.
He's the guy. He's always the best player on
the team. In the 2024 Paris Games, he became
USA's all -time leading scorer and rebounder.
And think about it. So many superstars skip the
Olympics to rest. Durant almost always shows
up. He just loves playing basketball. It's that
simple. And that passion extends off the court
now, too. He's become this really savvy businessman.
Yeah. 35 Ventures, his company with his partner,
Rich Kleiman. They're not just, you know, endorsing
products. They're investing. They have a stake
in an MLS team, a pickleball team. Their media
platform, Boardroom, is a real force in sports
business media. He's also been a pretty vocal
advocate, too. For sure. Especially with cannabis.
He partnered with Weedmaps to help destigmatize
marijuana use for athletes, for recovery. He's
been really open about it, which is a big deal.
And he's an Oscar winner. We have to mention
that. It's an insane fun fact. He was an executive
producer on a short film called Two Distant Strangers
that won an Academy Award. So he has more Oscars
than Leonardo DiCaprio did for a very long time.
Plus, he's a credentialed photographer who shot
a Super Bowl from the sidelines. Yeah. The guy
is just, he's endlessly interesting. But you
can't talk about his off -court persona without
talking about Twitter. Ah, yes. The bird app
X. Whatever it is. He is famously very online.
He's not just online. He's in the trenches. Most
superstars have a PR team post great team win
tonight. KD is in the replies at 2 in the morning
arguing with a random account with 12 followers
about a game from 2014. It's incredible. He's
admitted to having burner accounts to defend
himself. But you know what? I kind of respect
it now. He said that when he was in OKC, he felt
phony, like he was always trying to be the perfect
corporate superstar. Now he's just him. If he
thinks your opinion is dumb, he's going to tell
you. It's authentic, if nothing else. It makes
him feel more human than almost any other athlete
at that level. So let's try to wrap this all
up. We've traced the path from the Slim Reaper
in Seattle to the veteran sniper in Houston.
It's a journey defined by movement, by change.
He's been a hero. He's been a villain, sometimes
in the same city. He's polarized absolutely everyone.
But the one constant, the one thing that has
never, ever wavered is the skill. I think this
one stat just sums him up perfectly. He and LeBron
James are the only two players in history to
have scored 40 points against all 30 NBA teams.
He has burned every single franchise to the ground
at some point. And he's doing it more efficiently
as he gets older, which is the part that still
breaks my brain. That 55 -40 -90 season should
not be possible for a guy at his age post -Achilles
tear. So here's the final question I want to
leave everyone with. It's 2026. He just passed
Wilt. He's seventh all -time in scoring. Given
that his efficiency is somehow still improving,
does Kevin Durant have a realistic shot at cracking
the top three all -time scorers list? Or will
the constant moving, the wandering nature of
his career, ultimately overshadow the pure statistical
dominance? If he can stay healthy for two or
three more years in Houston, playing in a system
that needs his scoring, I would not bet against
him. He just loves putting the ball in the basket
way too much. I wouldn't either. All right, that's
it for this deep dive. Thanks for joining us.
Take care, everyone.