Kevin Durant has entered the chat.
The Phoenix Suns forward thinks he has the résumé to be included in the NBA greatest of all-time conversation, which is usually a debate between Chicago Bulls legend Michael Jordan and Lakers superstar LeBron James.
As for why he isn’t widely considered in the GOAT debate?
“Because I went to the Warriors,” Durant told The Arizona Republic last week, referring to 2016, when he left the Oklahoma City Thunder after nine years to join the Golden State Warriors.
“Why shouldn’t I be in that? That’s the question you should ask. Why not? What haven’t I done?”
Durant’s move from OKC to the Warriors is still considered one of the most polarizing free agency moves in NBA history.
Some believe he took the easy way out when he left the Thunder — where he was the part of a Big 3 with Russell Westbrook and James Harden, whom are now teammates on the Clippers — to join a Warriors team with Steph Curry and Klay Thompson that was established and fresh off a championship run in 2015.
Durant, who will turn 36 in September, is undoubtedly a future first-ballot Hall-of-Famer.
The 7-footer won two consecutive NBA championships and two finals MVPs with the Warriors in 2017 and 2018 — and made the Finals all three seasons he was with Golden State.
Durant, who is a 13-time NBA All-Star, won a regular season MVP award in the 2013-14 campaign.
He has three Olympic gold medals (2012, 2016, and 2020) and is the leading scorer in Team USA’s men’s Olympic basketball history.
Durant’s infamous decision has been the butt of jokes on numerous occasions.
Hall-of-Fame quarterback Peyton Manning joked that Durant would join the Final Five women’s gymnastics team because of their dominance when he made a brief appearance during the 2022 ESPYs — which Durant wasn’t happy about.
In 2022, Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley claimed Durant’s career outside Golden State is an “abject failure.”
If you’re counting championships, then Durant is last in the conversation behind Jordan, who won six championships and James who has five titles; nobody has more than Bill Russell’s 11 titles with the Celtics.
The late Lakers icon Kobe Bryant won five NBA championships in his 20-year NBA career in Los Angeles, and is widely included in the conversation — as is Curry, who won four championships with the Warriors.
He nearly completed a three-peat championship run with the Warriors — and joined Jordan and Bryant in that exclusive club — when Golden State lost to the Raptors in the 2019 Finals.
Durant suffered an Achilles injury and signed with the Nets in the summer of 2019, and joined forces with his good friend, point guard Kyrie Irving (now with the Mavericks)
That plan never worked out and Durant requested a trade out of Brooklyn in June 2022, just days after Irving received permission from the team to seek a sign-and-trade.
Brooklyn traded Durant to the Suns for a haul of first-round draft picks in a surprise blockbuster before last year’s NBA trade deadline.
In his first full season with Phoenix, Durant is currently having an MVP-caliber campaign.
He is averaging 28.9 points on 53.2 percent shooting in his 17th NBA season, and was named the NBA Western Conference Player of the Week for Week 13 of the 2023-24 season (Jan. 15-21).
Durant is 10th on the NBA’s all-time scoring list — which is led by James — having played in fewer games than the nine players in front of him.
He is only 683 points behind O’Neal for eighth and trails Carmelo Anthony by 376 points, and has played in fewer games than both retired players.
Durant was also named to the NBA’s 75th Anniversary team in 2021, which he said “meant everything” to him.
Durant is in the second of a four-year, $194.2 million contract with the Suns.
Phoenix won its fifth straight game against the Indiana Pacers on Sunday.
The Suns (24-18) host the Chicago Bulls (21-23) Monday night.