It had seemed to be a foregone conclusion that a clash of the titans would take place between the Los Angeles Lakers and Brooklyn Nets in the 2021 NBA Finals.
After all, the Lakers were coming off a title run led by the efforts of LeBron James and Anthony Davis. This spurred the Nets to bring in some star power of their own by forming a trio of Kevin Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving.
Unfortunately, injuries ultimately prevented both teams from making it come to fruition. Despite each side coming up short, it appears that has not done much to change the hierarchy for Durant.
The Nets’ superstar was featured on the NBA’s 75th-anniversary version of NBA 2K22. He revealed in an interview that his starting lineup in the game would include both James and Davis alongside his current superstar teammates, via the Boardroom:
“I always get in trouble when asked these type of questions because I’m going to forget somebody. There’s so many great players,” Durant said. “But off the top, if I had to go five, I would go Kyrie [Irving], James [Harden], myself, LeBron [James], and Anthony Davis.”
Although Durant’s response was based off who he would go with in the video game, he already expected it to generate some noise. After all, he caught some flak back in April after forgetting to name Russell Westbrook as a top-5 teammate.
To be fair, this lineup is certainly tailor-made for 2K success with each player capable of creating their own shots and making 3-pointers. However, it is safe to say that such a starting five would also be hard to beat in real life should an opportunity present itself in an All-Star Game situation.
James and Durant were set to square off as team captains in this year’s festivities. Unfortunately, the latter was sidelined with an injury and he was forced to watch his team lose by 20 points.
Steve Kerr told Kevin Durant to be like LeBron James
Despite the rivalry between these two, their career paths have mirrored each other in many ways. Like James with the Miami Heat, Durant received plenty of criticism for forming a superteam with the Golden State Warriors.
This forced him to take on the villain role while winning back-to-back titles in Golden State. It was during that time that head coach Steve Kerr urged Durant to disregard all the noise and focus on the task at hand like James did.
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