HoopsVibe

Is this true? Kevin Durant one dimensional like Ben Gordon, JR Smith, Jamal Crawford, Vinny Johnson? Sacrilegious. Well, I don’t give a damn. He has to stop having slow starts, play better defense, and rebound close to 9 per game then he is not one dimensional. What can he do besides shoot, shoot, shoot? I’ll admit that Durantula is god-like in that one dimension that is scoring. He can drain anything in any situation. Amazing. Great. So? He’s not a great all around player. I don’t get why fans were claiming him to be the immediate MVP before this season started. Once again let’s use The NBA league MVP criteria to examine what the hell is going on.

A) Stats – 43 games, 39.8 mpg, FG 0.466, 3PT 0.339, FT 0.883, STL 1.1, BLK 0.9, RPG 6.7, AST 2.8, PTS 28.9, PER 23.8
The numbers prove the one dimensional label. The 28.9 points per game average stands out. That is all. His 6.7 rebound average is awful for someone who is 6-9. His assists average is bad. He should be getting more blocks. His PER is too low to be anointing him as the next GOAT. You guys are crowning him already? He’s not even a great all around player as the numbers show. He is nowhere near LeBron level. Again, Durant has to increase his numbers in other areas besides scoring to increase the PER up to 26+ to start GOAT talks. Don’t be too high crowning his ass as MVP. If you negate his PER, the rest of the numbers remain bad except for scoring.

B) Team record – 31-17. 0.646 win percentage. Currently 4th seed in Western Conference.
This is bad for Durant’s MVP chances. This hurts him a lot especially playing with another super stud in Russell Westbrook. This squad is only the 4th seed? They should be above Kobe’s Lakers.

C) Impact – I could use +/-, but that yields weird results. Advanced metrics do not help much here. Yes, the kid can make clutch shots. No doubt. He can score from anywhere. He is the Thunder’s number one guy, but is he truly the team’s absolute best player? Russell Westbrook is making a great case for himself. This sort of resembles Wade-LeBron situation. Simply put, this is arguable. Again, this puts more hurt on Durant’s MVP argument. Do not lie. It’s true.

Kevin Durant is Darren Aronofsky’s Nina in Black Swan. Nina plays the White Swan perfectly. She just can’t nail the dangerous Black Swan. Throughout the film, she breaks through to become Black Swan – multidimensional in a sense. Nina paid a huge price to do it. That’s Durant. This might be hard for him to do. All I know is that an MVP cannot be one dimensional. Even Steve Nash and Allen Iverson weren’t that.
 

Out of 100 divided up among 10 other MVP candidates – 5% chance of getting MVP. If MVP race ended today, he loses.

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