Even After All These Years, Watching Kevin Durant Bury Game Winners Will Never Get Old

Logan Riely. Getty Images.

Eventually, there will be an official changing of the guard in the NBA. One day, you will live in a world where players like LeBron James, Steph Curry, James Harden and Kevin Durant are no longer playing basketball in the NBA. The good news is the league is in fantastic hands with the next era of superstars. There's never been as much elite talent across the league like we see today.

The bad news is that watching all those guys play basketball is a wildly enjoyable experience, and even at their later stages as they come down the back 9 of their careers, they're all still as good as ever. It's actually a bit insane if you think about it. The fact that there's been minimal regression for LeBron/Steph/Harden/KD despite all their NBA mileage feels a little nuts, but that's why they're living legends.

In the case of Kevin Durant, we were reminded on Monday night just how awesome he still is with his dagger game winner against his former team

Here's a fun fact for you. After that game winner, Kevin Durant now owns the most go-ahead threes in the final 5 seconds of a game in NBA history. Did you also know he's made 11 of his 12 game winner attempts in the playoffs? Pretty good scorer in my humble opinion!

You know it had to feel good for KD to knock that down, not just because the Rockets could use the win to keep their momentum rolling, but also because of who it came against. He certainly didn't shy away from that when asked about it postgame

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I mean, he's not exactly wrong. Honestly that entire situation is something where maybe both sides are better off apart. KD is on a great team and has a legit shot to contend for a title, and the Suns are one of the better surprises of the season. They play hard as shit and are a very fun watch every night as they begin their rebuild. Sometimes you get a win/win situation and that's what it feels like this is. Unfortunate that the experiment didn't work in PHX, but that's life. 

As a player though, I would fully expect there to be a little extra juice on KD's side given how everything went down. Hopefully we see these two in a playoff series while KD is a Rocket, that'd be fun.

Watching KD hit that game winner, it reminded me a lot of how I feel watching Steph still go nuclear on a nightly basis. You have to appreciate these moments coming from this group of legends, because our days with them in the league are numbered. There are only going to be so many more KD game winners before he walks away for good, just like there are only going to be so many Late Night Steph explosions or LeBron doing LeBron shit. And to this day, even after all these years, it will never get old to see some of the greatest players the NBA has ever seen do what makes them great.

For KD, it's been 18 years of buckets. Arguably the greatest offensive scorer in history, he's truly a 1 of 1 player