And with the fourth pick in the 2008 NBA Draft, the Seattle Supersonics select... Russell Westbrook! Nobody knew it then, but with this pick the Supersonics, who would become the Oklahoma City Thunder, found a match for the prodigy that they had drafted a year before-- Kevin Durant.
The next year, the Thunder would draft James Harden and turn their 23-59 record from the year before into a 50-32 playoff year. It would be credited to successful drafting and an excellent rebuilding job by the team's GM. This year, the Durant-Westbrook duo fell just short of the finals after squandering a 3-1 series lead in the Western Conference Finals. The two seemed to be building a legacy together in Oklahoma City until Durant abruptly left a few days ago to join the team that kept him from his first ever Finals: the Golden State Warriors.
As a Spurs fan and an avid Durant follower, my first thoughts were of shock and anger. How could he throw away his reputation like that? His legacy is surely ruined now. However, after I was able to calm myself down, I got to thinking about why is reputation was ruined. By joining the Warriors, Durant created a super-team out of the team that had just beaten the NBA record for wins in a season. But why is it different when the team-building is done in free agency rather than in the NBA Draft? Is this not just another impressive building job by Golden State's GM?
Take the unavoidable Jordan-Lebron comparison, for example. Lebron was drafted to the unbelievably bad Cavaliers, where he was able to single-handedly turn the franchise around, leading the team to a franchise record 66 wins with Mo Williams as the team's second-leading scorer. He then left for Miami, where he hand-picked teammates Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to create his own super-team.
Michael Jordan, on the other hand, was also able to play with a pair of Hall-of-Famers in Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen. However, because this happened on the team he was drafted by, no one seems to care. Throughout the history of the NBA, there have been plenty of super-teams. The Celtics won 11 NBA championships back in Bill Russell's time. Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played together. Shaquille O'Neal spent time playing with Kobe Bryant and Dwyane Wade. Kobe Bryant has also played with Pau Gasol, Steve Nash, and Dwight Howard. However, all of these players are considered to be all-time greats. This is because great teams win championships, not great players.
Now that I have stepped back and looked at the situation, I feel that there is little difference in Kevin Durant's legacy. He left a team with a budding Steven Adams, a defensive powerhouse in Serge Ibaka, and a triple double machine in Russell Westbrook for a team that was 8 points better than them in Game 7 of this year's series. If anything, Durant could be helping his legacy, as his Hall-of-Fame resume is missing nothing but a ring.
