{"id":14985,"date":"2018-05-13T19:24:02","date_gmt":"2018-05-13T23:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=14985"},"modified":"2018-05-13T19:28:28","modified_gmt":"2018-05-13T23:28:28","slug":"kevin-durant-legacy-warriors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2018\/05\/13\/kevin-durant-legacy-warriors\/","title":{"rendered":"What A Second Championship Would Mean For Kevin Durant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a><\/strong><\/strong> has established his legacy as a professional basketball player. By far one of the best players in the league, Durant finally won a title when he joined the <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/golden-state-warriors\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Golden State Warriors<\/a>. His monumental success as a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/oklahoma-city-thunder\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a> came without a title, however. Many will say that Durant had to join the Warriors to win a title because he couldn\u2019t beat them. Well, if you can\u2019t beat them, join them, right? The NBA world exploded when KD made his move to the Bay Area. Now, his legacy could be extended with yet another NBA Championship.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h1><strong>Kevin Durant\u2019s Legacy<\/strong><\/h1>\n<p>Golden State once again finds themselves in the Western Conference Finals. A monstrous match-up against the top-seeded <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/houston-rockets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Houston Rockets <\/a>stands in the Warriors\u2019 way. This series will be no easy task to handle. Both the Warriors and Rockets are elite teams, and this series will be epic. For Durant, this series is about advancing and trying for another championship. With the Warriors being one of the best teams in the league, we all knew this match-up was coming. We just had to wait on it. Imagine what could have been had Durant, <strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/westbru01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Russell Westbrook<\/a><\/strong><\/strong>, and <strong><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hardeja01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">James Harden<\/a><\/strong><\/strong> all stuck together in OKC. A title or two could have already been in their hands. But, everything happens for a reason.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>What a Second Championship Would Mean for KD<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Durant had to leave Oklahoma City to chase a championship. The pieces weren\u2019t fitting in OKC, and he needed to join a super team to accomplish his goal. Now that he has a title, what would a second one mean? His legacy is already great. However, a second championship would make it that much better. A future Hall-of-fame candidate, Durant has instilled his greatness into Golden State\u2019s winning mentality. A title in 2018 would boost his chances at being one of the greatest players of his generation.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now, winning championships is not the only factor that makes a player great. But, Durant is such an elite player that winning a title only adds to his greatness. The talented Warriors have so many great players that KD fits right in. Leaving Oklahoma City proved to be the best move for Durant, and that was proven when he won his first ring. The amount of help he has with the Warriors surpasses his help he had in OKC by a mile.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The NBA has seen numerous players join better teams, but a super-team is rare. When Durant made the move, it out Golden State in a position to compete for championships for the foreseeable future. Acquiring such an elite player like Durant was the final piece the Warriors needed to continue their quest for titles.<\/p>\n<p>With a strong resume already, a second championship would mean so much for Durant alone. Something that he hadn\u2019t accomplished before, the veteran Star now has his chance at a second ring and another accomplishment to add to his Hall-of-Fame resume. The Warriors will first have to go through the Rockets and then the <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/cleveland-cavaliers\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonnba.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/nba-teams\/boston-celtics\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Boston Celtics<\/a> in the Finals.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"C11HpxzNSRB0Evr84Inggg\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/695374716\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'C11HpxzNSRB0Evr84Inggg',sig:'tdeKpztfMt6K8ECTFSs5fFX4N4gpMaSzOyPMkR97mcg=',w:'594px',h:'396px',items:'695374716',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Durant has established his legacy as a professional basketball player. By far one of the best players in the league, Durant finally won a title when he joined the Golden State Warriors. His monumental success as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder came without a title, however. Many will say that Durant had [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":187,"featured_media":15070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25,2],"tags":[1500,65,182,333,69,96,408,407],"class_list":["post-14985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-warriors","category-featured","tag-2018-nba-playoffs","tag-basketball","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-nba-championship","tag-nba-finals"],"modified_by":"Lior Kozai (Managing Editor)","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/187"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}