Draymond Green, a forward for the Golden State Warriors who never backs down from a conversation, has responded to some odd remarks made about Kevin Durant’s career by the general manager of the Phoenix Suns.
Jones asserted that Phoenix is still attempting to become the first team to maximize Durant following his 16th season in the league following the Suns’ humiliating first-round series loss to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
While highlighting Kevin Durant’s accomplishments with the Golden State Warriors, Draymond Green claims he was “baffled” by James Jones’ remarks.
Green was happy to remind Jones of this during his most recent podcast broadcast on Friday, but it is evident that Jones made the decision to ignore the memory of his game versus Durant in the 2017 NBA Finals.
“Watching James Jones make this remark left me perplexed…In the 2017 NBA Finals, James Jones’ squad was defeated by Kevin Durant. I don’t think James Jones could come out and claim, “No one has been able to utilize Kevin Durant,” after you got busted as badly as the Cavaliers did.”
Jones had plenty of opportunity to observe as Durant destroyed the Cavaliers his route to becoming MVP of the Finals, as he only played eight minutes in all throughout the course of the five-game series. In addition to scoring 35.2 points on amazing shooting percentages of 55.6% from the field and 47.4% from three-point range, he also added 8.2 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.6 blocks, and a steal a game.
To elaborate on Green’s idea, what other way could you optimize a player than with figures like that? Should that be insufficient, a year later Durant averaged 28.8 points, 10.8 rebounds, 7.5 assists, and 2.3 blocks in a Finals sweep of Cleveland.
Although Durant’s 26.8 points were the third fewest of his 13-year playoff career, he was incredibly effective in the first-round matchup versus the Timberwolves. That seems to indicate that the Suns did not fully utilize the 35-year-old to the best of his abilities, which is Jones’ point.
However, it would be insulting to the history Durant has built to claim he has never been maximized, or at the very least, it would create an unreasonable expectation that he might improve at this point in his career.
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