Kevin Durant Showed Incredible Self Awareness By Turning Down The Idea That He'll Ultimately Get A Statue Once He Retires

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On the heels of Dwyane Wade's statue, there was some discussion about what current players would one day get a statue of their own. Wade himself suggested a player like Kevin Durant would one day get one, and it's an interesting idea. From a talent standpoint, KD is the caliber of player that absolutely, 1000000% would be statue-worthy. He's arguably the greatest offensive player of all time, he has the rings, his career stats when he finally hangs them up are going to be crazy, and he's a first-ballot HOFer.

The main question, of course, is which team would build it? 

When you think of someone like LeBron, he has a case to have at least two different franchises build him a statue, but I'm not so sure KD's situation is in the same boat. The one thing I've always appreciated when it comes to KD is he seems to have a pretty good perspective on his career, his achievements, and where he stands in basketball history, which is why I found his answer to this question rather interesting

That level of self-awareness is pretty refreshing if we're being honest. 

With OKC, I think it's fair to suggest that KD was certainly headed in that direction, but their split probably killed that dream. I could see if one day he ends up back in OKC and helps them win a title then maybe, but that's not exactly realistic (the return part, not the title part). 

With GS there's a case to be made given how important KD was to those two titles, but he clearly wasn't there long enough with just 3 seasons. The Warriors will build statues, but it's going to be for the trio of Steph/Klay/Draymond for obvious reasons. 

With BKN, well…..yeah. That's an easy no.

With PHX, this has the potential to get interesting. As of now, KD has this year and next year on his current deal, which brings him through his age 37 season. Let's say he signs on for another 2-3 years after next season, that would give him around 7 years in PHX, which is somewhat close to his 9 years in OKC. If somehow KD were to play a huge role in the Suns winning their first-ever title, I feel like a statue isn't totally out of the question. Maybe they'd reserve that for Booker since he's a Suns lifer, but if we're to play this game I could see that being the path to a team giving one to KD. Even still, the chances of that are pretty slim.

It really goes to show just how wild KD's career is. He's one of the greatest players to ever play in the NBA, but he's sort of a basketball nomad. It's not like other all time greats haven't played for multiple teams before, shit LeBron has played for 3 to KD's 4, but the difference of course is LeBron has at least 1 title at every stop, and his return to CLE in 2016 and that title solved the whole bolting to form a superteam thing, something KD obviously deals with when it comes to OKC/GS. 

So while there most likely won't be a KD statue once he finally hangs up his shoes, he'll probably go down as the best player in NBA history to never get one, so at least that's something!