Kevin Durant Names Nets His Most Talented Team Ever

Kevin Durant has played alongside some of the greatest players in NBA history, including Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, LeBron James, and Russell Westbrook.

Yet when asked about the most talented team he has ever been a part of strictly based on the roster on paper, Durant didn't pick one of the Golden State Warriors teams that won championships.

He picked the Brooklyn Nets.

During a recent appearance on Boardroom Talks with Speedy Morman, Durant was asked which team he believed was the best he had ever played on when looking only at the names on the roster.

“Just looking at straight roster, nothing else. Yeah, I would say Brooklyn.”

That Nets team was the star-studded 2020-21 roster that featured Durant alongside James Harden and Kyrie Irving. The team also had veteran names such as Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap and Patty Mills.

When Durant looked at the résumés of everyone on that roster, it was hard for him to put another team ahead of it.

“Like we had the names on that team,” Durant said. “When you just look at accolades on the table, I would say that team.”

Durant did acknowledge that the Warriors had an argument, particularly because of the combination of Curry, Thompson and Green. However, he pointed out that the Golden State core had not yet accumulated all of the accolades they would eventually earn when he joined the team.

The Brooklyn roster was different. Durant, Harden and Irving were already established superstars, while the supporting cast included several veterans with impressive résumés of their own.

There was also a distinction between the most talented team on paper and the best team Durant actually played on.

When asked about the latter, Durant went with the 2018-19 Warriors.

“Obviously, the best team I played on was Warriors,” Durant said.

That team featured Curry, Thompson, Green and DeMarcus Cousins, among others. Durant admitted that he sometimes forgets Cousins was even on that roster because injuries limited how much they actually played together.

Still, the Brooklyn team wasn't far behind.

“That Brooklyn team is a close second,” Durant said.

For Nets fans, the comments are another reminder of just how much talent was assembled in Brooklyn during that era and how quickly everything unraveled because of injuries.

Durant was also asked what comes to mind when he thinks about what that Nets team could have accomplished.

His response was simple.

“Just riding down Atlantic for real on the parade,” Durant said.

That's the image Durant still has in his head when thinking about that team: a championship parade moving through Brooklyn with Nets fans celebrating in the streets.

The Nets entered the 2021 playoffs as one of the favorites to win the championship, but injuries ultimately became a defining part of the story. Irving was sidelined after suffering an ankle injury in the Eastern Conference semifinals, while Harden battled a hamstring injury before returning to the series. Durant was also dealing with injuries throughout the postseason.

For Durant, knowing injuries played such a major role makes the disappointment a little easier to live with.

“When you realize injury is the reason cuz we played bad or we gave we underachieved on the court. And I think that's what makes it takes a sting out of it just a little bit,” Durant said. “That was just injuries.”

The Nets never got to see what that group could have looked like at full strength when it mattered most. That's what continues to make the team such a fascinating “what if” in franchise history.

And coming from Durant, the latest comments make that even more interesting.

He has played on championship Warriors teams, shared the court with some of the best players of his generation and spent his entire career around elite NBA talent. Yet when he looks strictly at the roster and the résumés of the players around him, he still puts Brooklyn at the top.

The Nets had the talent.

They just never got the chance to finish the job.