Saturday marks Kevin Durant’s first return to the Bay Area since leaving Golden State for Brooklyn in 2019. And as those Warriors that Durant reached the pinnacle with reminisced on their former dynasty, even they looked across the court at the Nets’ Big 3 and saw an offensive juggernaut that impressed them.
Granted, Durant had his first Warriors reunion on Opening Night, with the Nets rolling to a 125-99 rout at Barclays Center. But they’ve since reshaped their roster, adding James Harden to Durant and Kyrie Irving. Now what they lack in cohesion, they make up for in star power.
“They’re a different team,” Stephen Curry said. “Obviously with James and just that three-headed monster — KD will be back from the health and safety protocols and all that — I’m sure they’re still figuring themselves out in terms of how they’re going to coexist and play. Obviously, when you have three guys like that, when they all click, you’ve seen it — offensively they’re unbelievable.”
When Curry said Durant was back, he meant from a weeklong contact tracing quarantine that cost him the three games before Saturday’s game at Chase Center. But he might as well have been talking about Durant being back to his old MVP self after rupturing his Achilles in the 2019 Finals.
Durant leads the Eastern Conference in All-Star votes and came into Saturday averaging 29.5 points, 7.4 rebounds, 5.2 assists on 44.9 percent shooting from deep.
The Warriors planned to honor Durant with a one-minute tribute video Saturday, and are slated to do a full ceremony next season and retire his No. 35 jersey, presumably with fans in the stands to give him the congratulations he earned.
“Hopefully it’d be nothing but a standing ovation and giving him the respect he deserves as a champion. That should be straightforward, no surprises there; he deserves it,” said Curry, adding, “it was some of the best basketball the world’s ever seen. The ability to put that much talent and experience together and make it work — there was no guarantee it was going to work, and we figured it out.”
The Nets are trying to do the same. Saturday tipped off a five-game Western Conference trip — the team was 4-1 with the Big 3 in the lineup together.
Still, they have a long way to match Durant’s golden era in Golden State. The 2017 squad has even been hailed by some as the best ever.
“It’s tough,” Durant said. “There are so many great teams that played in this league, it’s tough to say the team is the best ever. It was a historical run, losing one game in the playoffs, and that was in the Finals.
“Steph played his best basketball in the Finals that year, I played my best basketball as well. Everybody was at the top of their games during that run, especially that year. But it’s tough to say — there are so many great teams that’ve played, that won championships — for me to say we were the best. But we played great.”
Asked to pick out a singular memory of that dynastic era, Curry and Warrior coach Steve Kerr both cited Durant’s performance in the 2017 Finals against Irving and LeBron James.
“Probably the Game 3 shot in ’17. Just because that was the best basketball we’ve all experienced on both sides,” Curry said. “And that shot was one that’s obviously iconic in terms of getting over the hump in Game 3 and win that championship. It was an amazing moment for him, cemented him as a champion.”
For Kerr, it wasn’t so much a lone play as the level of play.
“I remember a level of basketball that I don’t think has ever been reached before,” Kerr said. “Probably my strongest memory is the closing game of the ’17 Finals Game 5 at Oracle. … Amazing to win a championship at home, but the thing I remember most is in the fourth quarter both teams went small, and nobody could stop anybody. It just looked like the future of basketball.
“I remember walking away from that game just thinking there’s never been a level of offensive force in a basketball game ever than what we just saw.”
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