Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry are the 2 most well-known basketball players after LeBron James got drafted. Both of them are aged 34, and like James, rounding into the end of their prime years.
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Despite their considerable age, however, both KD and Steph are still setting the league alight with their play. Both are averaging north of 29 points per game this year – KD being in his 16th season and Steph in his 14th.
While Steph changed the world of basketball with his long-distance shooting, KD set a new paradigm of efficient shooting for a near-7-foot forward. Both of them have made significant impacts on the play of generations after them.
Steph Curry and Kevin Durant accept SI’s 2018 Sportsperson of the Year Award for the Golden State Warriors…and play one-on-one to decide gets to keep the trophy pic.twitter.com/TGFkJJcOtR
— Sports Illustrated (@SInow) December 14, 2018
Kevin Durant reveals he thought Stephen Curry was white
Kevin Durant was at Madison Square Garden last year as he tried to catch Steph breaking Ray Allen’s 3-pointer record. A couple of hours after the game, Curry was speaking to the media when KD caught up with him.
The two hugged each other as Curry said, “Remember that time you thought I was a little white kid?” causing Durant to throw his head back with laughter. “I think about that sh** all the time, dude!”
Durant revealed the story of why he mistook Steph to be a white kid back in 2014:
“I was about ten years old, and our AAU team drove down to Charlotte to play. I thought he was white. He was this yellow kid, right? I’m just being real now, right? Where I come from, in the hood, we don’t see that. We don’t see the light-skinned guys around.”
VIDEO: Kevin Durant on meeting Steph Curry when they were kids: “I thought he was white” http://t.co/RfY9YcPROP pic.twitter.com/qNwtxsB4d7
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 21, 2014
“I walk in the gym and this guy’s stepping across half court just pulling jump shots. Splash. Splash. And when we played him, he had like 25 and he was like ten years old. I was like, who is this? And ten years later… that was Steph Curry.”
Though the duo had contrasting paths to becoming professionals, they have had similar degrees of success once there.
How relevant are KD and Steph in today’s NBA?
KD and Steph were probably the 2nd and 3rd best basketball players in the world when they teamed up. The Warriors, from 2016 to 2019, looked like the most unbeatable dynasty in NBA history.
With 2 MVP-caliber players in addition to 2 All-Stars, Golden State cantered to 2 back-to-back titles. Disaster struck in 2019, however, when Durant injured his Achilles in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
That put paid to the Warriors’ hopes of a threepeat. Not long after, Durant signed with the Brooklyn Nets alongside Kyrie Irving, breaking up perhaps the league’s most talented duo of all-time other than perhaps Kobe and Shaq.
However, the duo continues to view each other in the best possible light. They are still fast friends and get along any time they run into each other on or off the court.
