Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant is no longer driven by championships. After all, he won two. Instead, he says it is the desire to be at his best that fuels him.
“I did not expect a title to be a happy one,” Durant told Rachel Nichols of ESPN in an interview aired on SportsCenter on Saturday. “I was just expecting the end of a movie, once you worked so hard and everyone said to you, ‘Yo, that’s what you have to work for, this golden ball and these rings. “And I’m just like, ‘Okay, okay, let me get involved.’ And I got caught up in wanting to achieve that, but I also realized that these are a lot of things that are out of my control.
‘And once I won a championship [with Golden State], I realized that my view on this game is really just about development. Like how good can I be? It’s not about, we know, let’s go win this championship. I appreciate those things and I want to win to experience those things, but that’s not the main reason I play the game. ‘
Durant averaged 28.4 points, 7.3 points and 5.3 assists in his first active season with the Nets after missing the entire 2019-20 season when he recovered from an Achilles tendon injury.
“I’ve been out of the game for two years now and was anxious about, ‘What do I do when I get back? ‘, Said Durant, 32, who is in his 14th NBA season after stopping at the Warriors. and thunder. “When you’re with an Achilles, you have to think differently about the game. And my goal is to be out there, you know. Who knows what’s going to happen when I’m out there. I just want to be available. And I “That’s all. I really want to be out of this for as long as I can. And we’ll see what happens between the lines.”
After missing 23 games this season due to a thigh muscle injury, Durant returned to a standing ovation on Wednesday night, coming off the bench only for the second time in his career and with 17 points on 5-out-5 shooting from the field off responded. 19 minutes of victory against New Orleans.
The game was only the seventh in which the team’s Big Three – Durant with James Harden and Kyrie Irving – were on the field together this season.
“I think our experiences with Team USA have definitely helped,” Durant said of the chemistry being developed under the three stars. “If you’re in that area, I would not say you should shrink yourself, but you really need to check your ego and find out when you should use it. Maybe you should take a step back to make the team good, and I think we all understand that.
“… I like what we build. … Everyone brings their share of it. Everyone is valuable. And we’re just trying to create something beautiful for people to look at, and for us to bring the players. play in. ‘