Klay Thompson: It ‘Bothers’ Me When People Don’t Talk About Kevin Durant’s Greatness

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Kevin Durant is widely considered one of the greatest players of his generation, but former Golden State Warriors teammate Klay Thompson believes the 12-time All-Star is still taken for granted.

On All The Smoke, Thompson said the three years Durant spent in the Bay Area were “special.”

“That’s why it bothers me when people don’t talk about Kevin’s greatness,” Thompson said at the 1:03:40 mark. “This man averaged 35 and 15 in the Finals. … That’s like Shaq numbers. Like, what are we doing here? It’s like, ‘He’s a bus rider’ and all this stuff. You can’t argue with the numbers. 35 and 15.”

Thompson isn’t saying anything Durant’s supporters haven’t already voiced before.

You don’t expect everybody to agree about how they feel toward a certain player. In the case of KD, though, you’d be hard-pressed to find another legend with his résumé who gets treated so dismissively at times.

Thompson’s “bus rider” comment was a reference to something Charles Barkley said about KD in the spring. Barkley attempted to argue Durant was “riding the bus” with the Warriors because they were a championship-winning squad with a central figure, Stephen Curry, before he arrived.

That mindset always downplays how badly Golden State needed the 2013-14 MVP, especially toward the end of his brief tenure.

The Cleveland Cavaliers simply had no answer for Durant in the 2017 and 2018 NBA Finals. He won Finals MVP both years, notably averaging 35.2 points, 8.2 rebounds and 5.4 assists in the 2017 Finals. Then his value was evident in the 2019 Finals, when the Warriors fell behind 3-1 without him and eventually lost in six games after he tore his Achilles tendon.

Golden State winning another title in 2022 doesn’t change history, either. If anything, it drove home how dominant the franchise might’ve remained if he had stayed. Granted, the idea that Durant was simply riding the Warriors’ and Curry’s coattails would’ve persisted, too.

It is what it is at this point. Most fans have probably set their narratives for Durant, and lifting a championship with the Brooklyn Nets or another franchise might not be enough to change that.