Getty Brooklyn's Kevin Durant and Golden State's Stephen Curry share a laugh after the Nets defeated the Warriors 134-117 at Chase Center on February 13, 2021 in San Francisco, California.
If anybody is familiar with Warriors guard Stephen Curry it would be Brooklyn Nets All-Star Kevin Durant. KD and Curry wreaked havoc on the league during Durant’s three years in Golden State from 2017-2019. Together the two won back-to-back championships (2017,2018) while Durant collected two Finals Most Valuable Player awards.
During Durant’s three-year tenure in The Bay, a long-winded debate was who was the Warriors’ best player between Steph and KD. For KD the narrative was that Steph had won a title before he arrived in 2016, for Steph it was the fact that never won a Finals MVP while Durant came to Golden State and won the award in back-to-back years.
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Kendrick Perkins Has High Praise for Steph Curry
After missing the bulk of last season with an injury to his non-shooting hand Curry has returned this season in a major way. Many fans have penned him as one of the top Most Valuable Player candidates this year as he leads the league in points at 31.8 per game to go along with 5.5 rebounds and 5.7 assists. Curry’s performance this season has Durant’s former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Kendrick Perkins giving the two-time league MVP some extremely high praise.
“Steph Curry is the best basketball player in the world today. There’s no other guy doing what he does with the personnel that he has. He is carrying this Warriors team, okay? If Steph Curry was not on this team, they would be in the lottery,” Perkins said during Thursday’s episode of ESPN’s First Take.
Durant and Perkins were teammates when KD took the Thunder to war in the 2012 NBA Finals against LeBron James and the Miami Heat although they would lose the series in 5 games. ‘Big Perk’ would remain with the team until the 2014-15 season when the team traded him to the Utah Jazz at the deadline.
“I just watched them play against the Phoenix Suns and there were multiple possessions but one, in particular, I’m used to superstars getting double-teamed, may even triple-teamed, but they had four players guarding Steph Curry completely ignoring everybody else,” Perkins continued. “That is just signs of respect and greatness. Steph Curry in my opinion is the greatest player on planet Earth today.”
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ESPN Report Suggests Nets in the Midst of a Dynasty
According to a recent report by ESPN, Durant could soon pass his former teammate in championships. In a story by ESPN’s Bobby Marks and Kevin Pelton, the two reporters suggest that the Nets could be competing for championships for at least the next three years. If Durant can deliver on all three it would give him five titles which are two more than Steph Curry currently has.
“For the first time in the 12-year history of our NBA Future Power Rankings, the Nets hold the top overall spot. Brooklyn ranked second in October 2019, fresh off signing Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving in free agency, but slipped to ninth last April, shortly after Kenny Atkinson’s departure as head coach,” Pelton and Marks wrote in the report per NetsDaily.
“Above and beyond the addition of James Harden and cultivation of a strong bench, giving the Nets the top overall score for players, we also have to give credit to the job Steve Nash and his experienced coaching staff (with Mike D’Antoni and Jacque Vaughn as assistants) have done managing this team. Brooklyn’s title window looks wide open over the next three years.”
Durant and the Nets have a promising future ahead for them, but they have not accomplished anything yet. The team’s hunt for its first-ever NBA title begins May 22 when the playoffs start.
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Kevin Durant’s Ex-Teammate: ‘Steph Curry Is Best Player in the World’