2. Kevin Durant, Brooklyn Nets
Kevin Durant is going to go down as one of the 20, if not 15, best players in NBA history. That might not seem like a massive deal with LeBron James going down as the second-best player in league history, but Kevin Durant is a generational superstar.
There has never been anyone in the league like Durant who at his size can score the basketball in any way he wants. When it comes down to overall skill and capabilities, Durant very well could be considered the greatest pure scorer of all time and that is not the only thing he does on the basketball court.
Durant does not get the credit he deserves (even if many still consider him to be elite) because he went to Golden State and has been tied up in this Brooklyn fiasco for the last three seasons. However, when it really boils down to it, he is someone you do not want to play in a Game 7 and is someone who many people would rank no. 1.
Heck, Durant almost led the battered Nets to a playoff series win over last year’s champions, the Milwaukee Bucks. If Durant’s foot was not on the line in the game-tying shot in Game 7 then we might be talking about Durant being a three-time champion, not a four-time champion.
Durant has the seventh-best career BPM in NBA history with at least 20,000 minutes played. That is how special he is.