Durant: NBA won’t fulfill me, prove who I am
Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman get into a heated debate on who is the best player in the NBA between Kevin Durant and Giannis Antetokounmpo. (2:21)
Golden State Warriors star Kevin Durant has accomplished just about everything there is to accomplish in the NBA, but the accolades don’t really matter to him.
“I don’t need anything in this basketball world to fulfill anything in me,” Durant told NBC Sports Bay Area in an interview published Friday. “The NBA is never going to fulfill me. It’s going to make me feel good about all of the work that I’ve put in, but I think those days of me wanting to prove something to anybody or walk around with a huge chip on my shoulder is not my thing.
“It wasn’t before, and I felt like I had to program myself to play with a chip on my shoulder, but I’m never good in that situation. I’m more relaxed and letting these days flow. I’m the best version of me. I don’t feel like I need anything like that to prove who I am. I’ve been in it for too long.”
Warriors All-Star Kevin Durant missed his first game of the season Thursday night against the Magic for rest.
Kevin Durant won his second career All-Star MVP, after helping lead Team LeBron back from a 20-point deficit in a 178-164 win over Team Giannis. Durant finished the game with a team-high 31 points.
Durant is coming off his second All-Star Game MVP award. He has won two NBA championships and was the Finals MVP both times. The list goes on: league MVP (2014), 10 All-Star selections, rookie of the year, four NBA scoring titles, a gold medal …
But it doesn’t drive him, he says.
“Being around family. Being around friends. The people who actually love you deep down to your core, who won’t judge you, who will let you grow mentally, physically, you know? Just let you be who you are. I like those environments,” he told NBC Sports Bay Area.
“I love to continue to push the limits on who I am as a person. Just the flow of life and the type of people I want to be around, the environment I want to live in. All that stuff will fulfill me more so than anything … just building toward something that’s sustained when I’m not even here on this Earth.”
Durant is not expected to opt in to the final year of his contract with the Warriors, worth $31.5 million, instead testing free agency this summer.
“I know the NBA helped me get there, but I’m not going to be forever indebted to the NBA because this is a 50-50 exchange,” Durant said. “I’ve worked hard to get here, to be at this level, and they gave me a platform to showcase what I can do. We both helped each other out. That’s how I look at it.”