Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: Why Kevin Durant is the best scorer of all time

the drill before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at Underscore Jason Lts. You guys don't miss any show announcements. And if, for whatever reason, you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts under Hoops Tonight, last but not least, before we get started, mail bag questions.

Got another week full of them next week and then maybe even into the future from there. I've kind of had some fun with it this week, so don't forget to drop your questions in the YouTube comments. All right, let's talk some basketball. So first mail bag question from Charles Hey, Jason huge fan, I've always wondered how you felt about older players like Charles Barkley calling today's NBA

soft and how nobody plays any real defense anymore. So I'm not gonna target Charles specifically specifically here, but just in general some of the older generation of players. I understand why there's a little bit of saltinis there. Like, think about it, it's objectively a way better time to be an NBA player now than thirty years ago. I think we can say that without much debate, right, I mean, they make a lot more money, the way they travel is much better, the access to medical care that they

have is much better. In general, the I would guess you call it the traditions or the expectations, the unwritten kind of like life of an NBA players easier in the sense of like, hey, if you're dealing with anagging injury, just take a rest instead of like that, you know, kind of like societal pressure so to speak, within the NBA to play through all of that like there was thirty years ago. The social media presence, the ability to

make money off the court. It's just way better to be an NBA player now compared to the way it used to be. And so I think a lot of these guys are kind of passive aggressive about it from the standpoint of being a little bit jealous. That said, like, it kind of bums me out, because what I don't understand from it is, I would imagine, just from sheerly, from the standpoint of loving the game, you would enjoy watching the next generation and seeing the direction they're taking

the game. And I want to be clear, it's not everybody. There are a lot of older guys that do pay the appropriate respect. Alan Iverson is a guy who pays a ton of respect to this generation. Jerry West is a guy who pays a ton of respect to this generation.

So there are guys like that out there. They're just few and far between, And I think it sucks because the future of basketball to me is bright, especially as you start to look around the world and the way that the NBA is appealing to other countries and people all around the globe. So like, it's a bummer, but I understand it. It just mostly has to do with how much better it is to be an NBA player

now compared to the way it used to be. All right, next mail back question from Ace, seeing how the league is is becoming more positionless every year, What really is a power forward or a small forward? How would you redefine positions if you could so? I don't necessarily think that there are positions, so to speak. There are archetypes, But your position is what job you can fulfill on the court. And like I've always said, there's just a ton of jobs to fill right on the defensive end.

Is there a big man that can guard and pick and roll or a big man that can switch onto a guard if you needed to switch and pick and roll. How many players on your roster are capable of banging with a post player? Right Like? It was nice to have Ruey Hachamura to throw at a guy like Nikola Jokic, Right Like, those are those bigger forwards sometimes that can

bang with the post player. That's an advantage. Who can lock and trail, meaning who can like chase a shooter around screens without constantly getting caught up and giving up separation. Who can guard at the point of it time that involves containing dribble penetration in one on one situations and the ability to chase over the top of screens and funnel guards into the paint. Right, those are all parts of point of attack defense. How many guys can bother

a pull up shooting wing. We have a lot of guys like Jeremy Grant, Paul, George Brandon, Ingram, Kevin Durant. They're all over the league, These guys that are six seven to six ' ten that have a dribble hand, a crazy dribble package and footwork package to get to pull up jump shots. How many guys can actually bother them versus guys that you know, those guys just see over the top of and don't even think about when

they rise up to shoot. Then we have low man responsibilities, right like can you guard in the weak side corner, help at the rim, and rotate out to bother a shooter? How many guys can fulfill that responsibility? Now, as we go to archetypes, certain archetypes are better at fulfilling certain

of those responsibilities. So, for instance, like a big forward think of like the Ruby Hachimura type, that Thattius Young type, that big strong forward, right, that type of guy usually is gonna thrive in lowmn situations because they're big enough to help and they're usually athletic enough to bother a shooter. They're usually capable of banging with post players, and usually they're big and strong enough to bother pull up jump

shooting wings. But they're not gonna be as good chasing over the top of screens, right, So they're not gonna be as good at the point of attack. They're not gonna be good chasing shooters around. Right. That's why a guy like ruiy Hachimura wasn't as valuable in the Golden State Series as he was in the next round against Denver. Right. So different archetypes of players will struggle with different responsibilities and succeed with others. The skinnier forwards the Jaden McDaniel's type.

They're usually great at locking and trailing because they're slender and nimble, and they're good at avoiding screens. They're usually great at the point of attack because they have quicker feet than bigger forwards, and they have that length and athleticism to bother people and again sidling over the top of screens. They're also usually pretty good at bothering pull up jump shooting wings as well. Because they've got the

length and size. Right, then we have like the shorter, stockier wings, right, or bigger athletic guards, whatever you want to call them. Is your Bruce Brown type. You're you know, Alex Cruso type of guard, right. That type of guy is usually outstanding locking and trailing because they've got low center of gravity and they're good athletes, so they're really difficult to screen. They're usually great at the point of attack for the same reason. And then there are a

different type of you know, it depends. Some of them are good at bothering pull up jump shooting wings when they bother their base, but then there are others of them where they can get a shot off over the top. Those of you guys who are Lakers fans a couple of years ago might remember, you know, Tobias Harris getting a turnaround fade away over Alex Caruso at the left elbow that he didn't even see Alex Crusoe. Why because as good as he is defensively, he's just a little

too short. And so I can go on and on and on. We can talk about the difference between bigger, slower centers versus smaller, more athletic centers and the pros and cons of each of them. But the reality is is when you are on a basketball team, when you're let's put it this way from the same point of the coach or the GM, I've got a list of responsibilities that need to be filled, and I need to have players in that lineup. Any given five man lineup

needs to be able to fulfill all those responsibilities. So ideally, if I was building a basketball team from scratch, I'd like to have a, you know, an athletic center that's versatile enough to work in different coverages. I'd want a big, strong forward. I'd want a slender athletic forward. I'd want a stocky athletic guard, and then preferably another stocky athletic guard. If I could pull that off with having all the offensive skill necessary. We just talked about defense, we take

it to the offensive end of the floor. A lot of similar responsibilities have to be filled, right. You gotta have ball handling. You gotta have guys that can catch and shoot or catch and attack closeout. So you got to have guys that can screen and roll hard to the rim. Maybe a guy who can dunk quickly out of the dunker spot, provide vertical spacing, right, like a guy that can run second side action when your primary

ball handler needs a rest. There's a bunch of different elements there that need to be filled, and different archetypes of players can take certain responsibilities off of that list. That's a really long way of saying like it's super complicated, and nobody's no one's going to be able to like shrink basketball down to four or five positions. There's a

million different archetypes of players. Maybe not a million, but there's probably about a dozen different archetypes of players, and it you know, so many different players fill you know, kind of different spots from each of those sets of responsibilities. And so it's infinitely complicated. As I say all the time, that's saying that I stole from mark Titis, like basketball is an art, not a science, like it's it's it's not something that you can really quantify most of the time.

All right, last mail back question today from Pierce. Do you think it's more difficult for a singular player in the modern NBA to amass as many accolades as players in the past. In the eighties and nineties, due to an increase in parody and league wide talent. If so,

should that be factored into all time debates? Here's the thing, Yeah, probably, Like there's just a lot more talent in the league now, Like how many like think about think of it this way, Like Lebron has managed to, you know, kind of scrounge together a certain reputation in this era and he's had to go up against Kevin Durant and Steph Curry and

Kawhi Leonard and Gianna Santanakupo. You get the point, Like it's been a stacked era and so yeah, the dominance isn't there that you see from earlier eras where maybe there wasn't as much talent in the league. Is that true? Yeah?

But here's reality. And like I had, I have so many people in the comments the last few weeks really since we started doing the top twenty five players for this season, so it's at almost five weeks now, so many people are like Jason's obsession with winning, Jason's winning bias. As someone literally said, winning bias in a comment yesterday. I was like, what does that even mean? Winning bias? Like, but like, my obsession with winning is not an obsession

with winning it's an obsession with what actually happened. Hypotheticals and context might help you plan for the future. Think of it, forget about basketball for a second, think about your life. Maybe I could do this, maybe I might do this, Maybe this could happen, maybe this won't happen.

Those things can help you plan for the future. And so yeah, I will think about hypotheticals and context from the same point, Like if I was building an NBA team, if I was a GM, I'm not gonna care as much about team result as how each individual player contributed, because I'm planning for the future, and maybe I can get a discount by taking a winning player out of a losing situation, right Like, as a GM, you might think that way, but when we're talking about the history,

that's pointless you saying maybe I should have done that, maybe this didn't what would have happened if this didn't happen. Thinking about hypotheticals in context for the past accomplishes nothing for you in your life. All it does is lead to regret. Right, So that's kind of the way I feel about basketball, Like, maybe could Lebron have dominated in

it to a higher extent in a different era? Maybe, but he didn't play in the eighty four to ninety eight stretch, right, he played from two thousand and three to the present. So like it doesn't serve any purpose or doesn't accomplish anything to go back and do that. Now, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with talking about that kind of stuff. And there are a lot of shows out there and a lot of people out there who love to talk about hypotheticals in context for the past,

and the hypotheticals in the context do exist. I just find them to be of low value in this type of situation. Like like, oh, maybe if Katie and Steph didn't team up, has five championships or six championships, Yeah, that's great, But Katie and Steph did team up, and Katie and Steph beat Lebron twice. So what exactly are you wanting? Do you want to like, do you want to give Lebron a hypothetical championship? Like it's just what are we gonna do, like just start giving out a

hypothetical trophy every year? Like it just to me, it

doesn't serve any purpose. And so with me in this show, and again, like you guys can do it however you want, But on this particular show, like, I'm gonna focus on hypotheticals and context when planning for the future in reality and what actually happened in the past, and that's just the way that things are gonna work on this particular show, all right, Moving on to number six in our top twenty five players the last twenty five years, Kevin Durant

accolades the best or second best player on a championship team twice. Both Katie and Steph were playing at a ridiculous level in those years. Like the reality was is there was a top tier of superstars that was three players. It was Lebron, Steph, and KD. They were all on the same tier. I think Lebron was slightly better than them, but the two of them were right there and they

were on the same team. So like, I don't feel comfortable calling any of them, you know, the best player or on the championship team, or the second best player on the championship team, because it kind of feels unfair to the other guy, no matter how you put it right, So you can rank them however you want. For the era, I generally view Steph as slightly better than KD. Why because he beat KD had to head in twenty sixteen

and he has two championships without KD. So, like like we talked about in the last topic, I can't deny what actually happened in NBA history. I think Steph has a slight edge, but for the purposes of this particular list, I'm just gonna keep it vague. Best or second best player on two championship teams, six time first Team All NBA, ten time All NBA overall, four time scoring champion. He had two fifty forty ninety seasons, and he won the regular season MVP in twenty fourteen and won back to

back NBA Finals MVPs in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, his claim to fame, he's the best score of all time. In my opinion, his twenty seven point three points per game is the fourth highest career points per game average in NBA history. Michael Jordan is number one, Wilt Chamberlain is number two. Both of those guys are just over thirty points per game, and then Elgin Baylor is number

three at twenty seven point four points per game. So Katie actually has a chance to pass him in the coming years, especially if he continues his twenty nine point per game regular season average that he's had post Achilles. But Kadi's career fifty percent field goal percentage thirty nine percent from three seven made free throws a game at eighty nine percent. That's again, he's literally like a career fifty to forty ninety guy. That puts him at a

career sixty two percent true shooting. So to give you an idea, that's five percent higher than Michael Jordan's career true shooting percentage of fifty seven percent. But here's the thing. Obviously, there's eras at play there. Katie has the benefit of the knowledge of this era and the value of three point shooting, which was clearly promoted in a way differently in this era than it was in MJ's era. Right, But here's why I'd put KD over MJ as a score all time anyway. KD did most of this by

staying in the flow of an offense. MJ was a gunner. This is a crazy stat. Michael Jordan attempted thirty one shots per one hundred possessions in his career. Kevin Durant attempted twenty six shots per one hundred possessions in his career. So again, like there are two players the top two scores among players who didn't retire before nineteen seventy five, right because Wilt and Elgin Baylor both retired in I think seventy two, seventy three, seventy four around that time.

So aside from those guys, MJ and KD are the top of the league. MJ's at thirty points per game, kd's at twenty seven points per game, far more efficient, and he did it on twenty five shots per one hundred possession twenty six shots per one hundred posessions. MJ did it on thirty one shots per one hundredossessions. So literally MJ shot about twenty percent more frequently as KD did, And so that's not a downside to Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time in

my opinion. But in my opinion, KD somehow managed to put up one of the best career points per game scoring averages in NBA history on outrageous and did it all without really rocking the boat anywhere that he was, which is why he's arguably the most plug and playable superstar in the history of the NBA, right, and that's what allowed him to go wherever he went and immediately fit in and be a great player on both ends

of the floor. So it's up for debate, but for me personally, I think Kevin Durant goes down as the best scorer of all time. His claim to fame was winning back to back finals MVPs in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen, the thunder years were really weird. There was this like rapid ascent, right. So they end up in this war with the Lakers in twenty ten where they go to six in the first round against the team

that went on to win a championship. By the way, Katie and Russ were twenty one years old in that series. By the way, twenty eleven, they end up in the conference finals and lose to that ridiculous Dallas Mavericks team. Then suddenly they're in the NBA Finals in twenty twelve, so like it was like rapid ascension, right, They're up one zero, but Lebron was on a mission that year.

He closes the deal KD in the loss in the twenty twelve finals puts up a stupid thirty one points per game on fifty five percent from the field, thirty nine percent from three, and eighty four percent from the line. That's a sixty five percent true shooting percentage. But then the Thunder trade James Harden away that summer, which turned out to be kind of like a catastrophic mistake that crippled the Thunder in their progress over the coming years.

So then twenty thirteen we get the Patrick Beverley dive at Russell Westbrook's knee which causes him to terry his meniscus, which causes him to miss the rest of the playoff run. And then Katy basically loses to the Memphis Grizzlies by himself. Now, don't forget that was when we had the mister unreliable headline in the in the newspaper. How ridiculous is this? KD was twenty four years old, lost Harden and Westbrook lost to an out standing Memphis Grizzlies team in his

hometown paper called a mister unreliable? Is that not the most ridiculous headline in the history of sports? But then KD has his breakout season in twenty fourteen, wins the MVP Award, kind of starts to enter into conversations with Lebron, although I don't think Katie really got to that level for another couple of years after that. But then they lose in six games to that ridiculous San Antonio team that basically perfected team basketball and was just unbeatable that year.

Then Katie hurts his foot in twenty fifteen and they missed the playoffs. So again, like you're at the title you're right there, you know, game two, you have a late lead, like so many things could go your way, and the next thing you know, it's like like one bad decision from the front office, an unfortunate injury, a really good team in twenty fourteen, and then another injury, and it's like all all of a sudden, it's twenty

sixteen and they hadn't won a title yet. But then we have that ridiculous twenty sixteen Thunder team which was like outrageously big. This was how This was their starting lineup, Steven Adams, Sergebaka in his athletic prime, Andre Roberson, one of the best defensive wings in the league, and Kevin Duran at seven foot at the two next to Russell

Westburg or maybe Roberson at the two. However you want to call it, but they were just absurdly big and athletic, and as a result, they were kind of a pain in the ass and they caused some problems for Golden State. They go up three to one Game one, Katie has a miserable shooting night Final gets a huge shot to go HiT's the biggest shot of the game, a pull up jump shot with thirty one seconds left that puts

ok up by five. Warriors win Game two. Then Oklahoma City just dominates Game three and four, just absolute landslide victories. Their size, athleticism, and strength combined with the home crowd energy that Oklahoma City had just made them really tough to beat at home that year. So they're up three games to one. Game five was closer than people remember.

KD hits a three with four and a half minutes left to bring Oklahoma City within five, but Golden State does end up holding serve as was to be expected. Then in Game six, Clay Thompson goes crazy as twenty five points in the second half can't seem to miss a three, but the thunder are still up by five with four and a half minutes left, But the thunder just fall apart down the stretch. KD over the final four and a half minutes of Game six, goes oh

for three from the field with two turnovers. Russell Westbrook has four turnovers in the final two minutes, the first of which happened when the game was tied. KD gets Klay Thompson on a switch, Russ looks him off, tries to iso Andre Gudala, gets stripped, and then Klay Thompson goes down and hits basic what ended up being the game winner along the right wing. And then Russ followed that up with three back to back to back turnovers. Not the brightest moment, but that was a weird Oklahoma

City team. And I've said this before, like I loved Russell Westbrook when he was his athletic prime. Is so much fun to watch, but really difficult player to win playoff series with because of his decision making, especially in late game situations. And so honestly, like I understood why KD wanted to leave. It made perfect sense to me. I just none of us ever thought he would have

gone to Golden State. That was the crazy party completely shocks the basketball world by signing as a free agent with Golden State, and it's like I put in my notes just all caps crazy because like I like, when I was thinking about it again this afternoon, like it really is crazy. I mean, like, you guys know, I love KD, but I'm not sure what exactly he was

expecting to happen when he made that decision. It was like almost guaranteed to have everybody go like come on, dude, Like and you know what's funny is like I admired the move from KD from a basketball perspective because I genuinely believe that KD looked at Golden State and thought, this is the best place for me to become the best basketball player that I can be, with one of the best coaches in the league, in a ball movement system, with a bunch of really smart high IQ basketball players.

That's what I think KD was thinking. I don't think he was looking at Golden State like shit, man, I'm gonna get easy titles over there. I don't think he was thinking about that. I think KD at his core, is a person who loves basketball, and I think he's obsessed with becoming the best basketball player that he can be. And I think he viewed Golden State as the place

for that to happen for him. That said, I think it was an error in judgment from the standpoint that I don't think he realized at the time just how ridiculous the backlash would be. But it's not hard to

figure out. It's like, dude, you lost to a seventy three win team in the conference finals, when you had a three to one lead, you left your team to join that team, the greatest team of all time, with one of the few guys in the league that's on the same level as Lebron, And then suddenly it's like, the three best players in the league are Lebron, Katy

and Steph, and Katie and Steph play together. Like of course, they won a bunch of championships after that, right, So I think there was I think Kd's kind of narrow minded focus on basketball was admirable but foolish at the same time, in the sense that it kind of put him in a position where his reputation kind of suffered

as a result. I do think Kadi's recovered that reputation a lot just by virtue of how amazing he is, and I think a lot of people overlooked, Like, yeah, like he won some easier championships, but that doesn't mean he's not a great basketball player. Like why were those championships easy? Because Kevin Durand's so freaking good at basketball, right, So I do think that he won people over in the long run, but I mean, predictably, they whooped everyone's ass.

They immediately won sixty seven games, They won fifteen consecutive playoff games in the ridiculous Western Conference, finished off the Cavs in five to win Katie's first NBA championship. I had a cool moment in Game three, they pull up three over Lebron. One of the things I really appreciate about that specific shot is that was a shot that Katie worked on his entire career. That high hesitation out of the left hand pull up three in transition has been a go to move for KD his entire career.

He's probably practiced it thousands and thousands and thousands of times, and so to see it come to fruition for him on the biggest stage, it is a really cool moment. I think I would imagine that KD looks back on that moment with a lot of funness, but The Warriors went again the following season, and in my opinion, they would have won again in twenty nineteen at KD not torn his achilles. KT finishes his Golden State tenure averaging twenty six points, seven rebounds, and five assists per game

on sixty four percent true shooting. I thought twenty seventeen was also the best defensive season of his career. He kind of functioned as the low man in Golden State's defense, like Draymond would defend and pick and roll, and Katie would kind of fill that Giannis role where he's guarding the man in the weakside corner but primarily operating as a rim protector. Did a lot of damage at the

rim that year. But then he tears his achilles easily the scariest injury for any basketball player, and he just got through it and made the most impressive return from that injury that any of us have ever seen. One hundred and thirty seven regular season games since coming back from his achilles injury, twenty nine to seven and six

on sixty six percent through shooting, which is just fucking ridiculous. Man, one great playoff moment, he damn near stole the Eastern Conference semis against Milwaukee with Kyrie Irving out with an ankle injury and James Harden on a Ben Hammy that turnaround jumps out with toe just barely on the line, won two inches back. He is in the Conference finals and probably beats Atlanta and probably has a good chance

to beat Phoenix as well. So it's kind of especially if you factor in the ability of Kyrie and James Harden to return to the lineup at full strength at some point over the next month. But then he had two rough shooting series in the last couple of years against Denver and Boston really quickly before we go to his biggest what if Kevin Durant completely mastered theull up jump shot? I think that would be Kevin Durant's like kind of like skill imprint on the game of basketball.

KD shot fifty five percent on pull up jump shots this year, like well over half of them. To give you an idea of how outrageous that is. Among players in the NBA who made at least three pull up jump shots per game, nobody in the entire NBA shot over fifty percent on him, and KD was at fifty five percent. So in like the same way that Steph is miles above the rest of the league is at three point shooter. KD is miles above the rest of

the league as a pull up jump shooter. And I think I think if you asked KD, what he would tell you was what he would credit for that is his workout routine. And he has a a kind of thing that he says all the time, talking about talking about taking those shots at game speed. And you know, it's funny because I relay that message to the high school

players that I coach all the time. But like, if you do not do reps at game speed, then when you get into a game and the physicality goes up a level and things get quicker, just because of the intensity,

you will miss shots. And I think a big part of why KD makes as many of the pull up jump shots as he does is when he goes to the gym tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon or whatever to do his shooting workout, He's going to be bringing an intensity to that workout that matches the intensity that he brings in an NBA playoff game, which allows that skill to translate when he gets there maybe a little bit less under physicality, but like because you're not obviously gonna

get yourself fouled like crazy in a workout, But he gets the most out of every workout because of the intensity that he approaches it with. And just go look up KDE shooting workouts. You can see it. It just looks different with the intensity that he brings to workouts. Biggest one if of KDE's career what if Oklahoma City had kept James Harden. Had they done so, they would have had three of the top ten players in the league,

all in their primes. And then again, like now you run into that question about talent and how easy a championship looks, right, like because people fans, the general public wants to see a struggle. That's just something that they give extra credit for, you know, fair or not. That's just the way it works. But the thing is is like there's this other thing with public perception where when you dominate but it's homegrown talent, you're off the hook

and people just look at that as dominance. It's the It's like the Denver Nuggets, they were the Denver Nuggets were way better than everybody this year. They literally kicked everyone's ass and had they like signed Jamal Murray as a free agent this summer, and signed Michael Porter Junior as a free agent this summer, and like traded for Aaron Gordon and then just did it all this year. There'd be this weird like, Oh, of course they kicked

everyone's ass. They you know, went out this summer and spent a bunch of money, Right, But that's not what happened. They were homegrown players, and so Denver whoops everyone's ass and gets all the credit in the world for it, right, And that's the thing is, I don't think. I think if KD stays didn't if James Harden stays in OKCE, KD stays in OKAC, they probably win multiple championships, and there's probably an entirely different perception surrounding his career. So

it's an interesting what if. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. I hope you guys all have an amazing weekend. Don't forget to drop some mailback questions in there. We will be back on Monday with number five the volume