OAKLAND — When the Warriors stars and Steve Kerr met with Kevin Durant in The Hamptons this summer, a key part of their pitch was convincing KD that they were willing to make sacrifices, and that there wouldn’t be any resentment if certain player’s roles changed.
The Warriors, and especially two-time MVP Stephen Curry, were clearly able to convince Durant of this during the meeting, but also made sure the message came across early in the season. Golden State made a conscious effort of involving Durant in the offense as much as possible during the first couple weeks, letting him take the reigns from game one even though it meant early growing pains for others and offense as a whole.
Now that adjustment period seems to be over, and not only is the Warriors offense clicking at a level we’ve never seen before, it is now Durant who’s making the conscious effort to get his teammates involved.
“KD’s always looking for other people,” Steve Kerr said at Warriors practice on Wednesday. “He’s so unselfish, it’s amazing to watch ’cause he can get any shot he wants at any time. He’s constantly trying to get everybody else involved which is a great trait, especially for a superstar.”
Durant is averaging 4.9 assists per game so far this season, nearly one above his career average, something that is incredibly significant considering he’s been able to get any look he wants at any time in Golden State’s offense, shooting a career high 44.2 percent.
A perfect example of Durant’s unselfishness occurred during Monday night’s win over Atlanta, when instead of looking for his own shot at the end of the third quarter, Durant passed ahead to an open Ian Clark in the corner, who buried a three as the buzzer sounded. Most telling was what happened after the play, with an elated Durant dapped up Clark, who was so surprised at his teammate’s jubilation, he could only chuckle.
Kerr, a role player throughout his NBA career, talked about what it means when the stars make a conscious effort to get everyone involved.
“I was Ian in my playing career,” Kerr said. “Sometimes in the rotation, sometimes not. It always gave me great confidence when the best players showed faith in me and I think that’s one of KD’s real strengths, as a player and as a teammate. He believes in everybody and he wants other players to succeed.”
“That was my favorite play the other night, not only because of the play itself but the reaction afterwards, and I think it really spurred us in the fourth quarter.”
But it’s not just the role players that Durant is trying to get involved. Durant also found Andre Iguodala for multiple open three’s on Monday, and went so far as to tell the veteran that he’s trying to get him open looks.
“Yeah he does actually,” Iguodala said when asked if Durant tries to get him involved. “I think that’s something that people don’t see in his game, because he’s such a great scorer, that can get overlooked, but he’s a great distributer as well, he can find guys on the perimeter and draw in attention on pick and rolls and find a big.”
So far, Durant has been even better than expected. Not only is he scoring at an efficiency that he’s never come close to in his career, he’s shown a willingness to play within a new system. His desire to share the collective success with his teammates has made all the difference and has the potential to take this Warriors team to unimaginable heights.