{"id":75292,"date":"2024-04-29T02:28:19","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T06:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=75292"},"modified":"2024-04-29T02:28:19","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T06:28:19","slug":"suns-kevin-durant-never-felt-comfortable-with-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/29\/suns-kevin-durant-never-felt-comfortable-with-role\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns Superstar \u2018Never Felt Comfortable\u2019 With Role"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Phoenix Suns have lost their First Round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves in embarrassing fashion, swept by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/e\/edwaran01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Anthony Edwards<\/a> and Co. as their three stars were unable to get it going.<\/p>\n<p>In the series, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a> was their only consistent volume scorer. A 14-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, he averaged 26.8 points per game on 55.2 percent shooting from the field. However, entering Game 3, he was only converting 33.3 percent of his 3s and had more turnovers (9) than assists (8). Usually capable of going toe-to-toe with the opposing team\u2019s best scorer, he was unable to match Edwards\u2019 virtuoso performance.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">ANTMAN SHOWED OUT IN ROUND 1 \ud83d\udc40<\/p>\n<p>\ud83c\udf1f 31.0 PPG<br \/>\n\ud83c\udf1f 8.0 RPG<br \/>\n\ud83c\udf1f 6.3 APG<br \/>\n\ud83c\udf1f 2.0 SPG<br \/>\n\ud83c\udf1f 51.2 FG%<br \/>\n\ud83c\udf1f 43.8 3P%<\/p>\n<p>Minnesota advances to the West Semis in the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/NBAPlayoffs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#NBAPlayoffs<\/a> presented by Google Pixel! <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/HtXyZpewKE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/HtXyZpewKE<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBA (@NBA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBA\/status\/1784821866168799432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 29, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Kevin Durant Never Felt Comfortable With Role<\/h2>\n<p>The Timberwolves\u2019 aggressive defense had a bit to do with Durant\u2019s off-kilter performance. Led by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mcdanja02.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jaden McDaniels<\/a>, Minnesota hunted Phoenix\u2019s Big 3, making them as uncomfortable as possible. However, apparently, \u201cDurant <a href=\"https:\/\/theathletic.com\/5456932\/2024\/04\/29\/phoenix-suns-season-end-frank-vogel-kevin-durant\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">never felt comfortable<\/a> with his role in Phoenix\u2019s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season\u201d (per The Athletic\u2019s Shams Charania and Doug Haller).<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThose sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As an isolation-heavy scorer, Durant\u2019s shooting stroke at 6-foot-11 has led to him lighting up NBA scoreboards for 16 years. With that said, the idea that the Suns wouldn\u2019t make every effort to ensure he\u2019s comfortable in the offense doesn\u2019t sound too believable. Especially considering that the Suns traded five first-round picks for him last February.<\/p>\n<p>To that point, 17.7 percent of Durant\u2019s offensive possessions in 2023-24 were isolation attempts, 9.2 percent were post-ups, 5.5 percent were dribble handoffs, and 4.4 percent were cuts. Compare those numbers to their 2021-22 counterparts, when Durant finished top-10 in MVP voting. That season, 19.5 percent of his offensive possessions were isolation attempts, 9.1 percent were post-ups, 6.4 percent were dribble handoffs and 3.1 percent were cuts.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not an exact match but the similarity is striking.<\/p>\n<h3>The Suns Need a Floor General<\/h3>\n<p>In a general sense, \u201cPhoenix\u2019s players questioned the coaching staff\u2019s inability to structure the offense and maximize the output of a lineup featuring three of the game\u2019s best scorers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To that point, the Suns did question their identity throughout the season. This was in large part due to the natural effects of him, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bookede01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Devin Booker<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bealbr01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bradley Beal<\/a> playing together as teammates for the first time. However, it\u2019s also because Phoenix traded away a renowned floor general and then expected Booker to replace him. Once Booker grew tired of masquerading as a point guard, Beal took hold of the reins.<\/p>\n<p>With that said, although Suns head coach Frank Vogel is <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/28\/nba-rumors-suns-frank-vogel-hot-seat\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">on the hot seat<\/a>, finding a starting point guard should be Phoenix\u2019s top priority this offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Phoenix Suns have lost their First Round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves in embarrassing fashion, swept by Anthony Edwards and Co. as their three stars were unable to get it going. In the series, Kevin Durant was their only consistent volume scorer. A 14-time All-Star and four-time scoring champion, he averaged 26.8 points per [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":75297,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[28,1608,21,62,3],"tags":[69],"class_list":["post-75292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-suns","category-basketball","category-timberwolves","category-nba","category-news","tag-kevin-durant"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75292","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\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75292\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75297"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}