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Kevin Durant is widely considered to be the best player in the NBA right now. Durant has had an eventful and very impressive past few months in which the whole basketball world is reminded of what he can do when healthy.
After being drafted No. 2 pick overall by the Seattle SuperSonics, which would become the Oklahoma City Thunder after the franchise’s relocation to Oklahoma, Kevin Durant went on to gain a reputation as one of the deadliest scorers ever in NBA history.
Kevin Durant is now entering the 15th season of his career. Throughout the years, he has had the opportunity to face all 30 teams at different times during his tenure in the NBA. There have been some unlucky teams that have had to witness Durant’s spectacular shooting in his magnificent career.
Here’s a look at the five teams that experienced Kevin Durant’s ruthless scoring efficiency.
Teams in the NBA against which Kevin Durant has had his best field goal averages
#5 Detroit Pistons. 51.5. FG%
Durant shot 51.5 FG% in the 21 games that he played against the Detroit Pistons. The Pistons are averaging 44.8 FG% since Durant entered the NBA. This is only slightly lower than the league average of 45.6 FG % from 2007-08 to 2020-21. The marked difference in the shooting percentages posted by KD in his career and those of the Pistons and the league is a clear example of the All-Star forward’s impeccable shooting.
The last time the Motor City franchise was truly relevant was in Durant’s rookie season when the Pistons lost the Eastern Conference Finals to eventual champions Boston Celtics. Since losing that series, they have only made the playoffs three times and lost each of those series to sweeps.
Granted that the Pistons’ rosters have not been great in those years, Durant’s consistency despite being a volume shooter and the central point of Detroit’s defense is head-shaking.
#4 New Orleans Pelicans. 51.5 FG%
Of the teams on this list, the New Orleans Pelicans, being from the Western Conference, battled Kevin Durant the most number of times with 37. Durant normed the same 51.5 FG% but did it in more games and averaged fewer minutes compared to games against the Pistons.
The Pelicans are a better team than the Pistons in KD’s whole NBA career. New Orleans has made it to the playoffs five times with two semifinal appearances. They gave the San Antonio Spurs a scare in the 2007-08 season before losing 4-3 against the Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker-led crew from Texas. The Pelicans also won one game against the mighty Golden State Warriors in the 2017-18 campaign.
Despite defensive schemes focused on him by a somewhat decent team throughout the years, he still torched them with above-the-league field goal percentages. Two of his best scoring games were against the then New Orleans Hornets team.
He dropped 47 points on them in his rookie season on February 17, 2009. It was highlighted by a 66.7% clip from the rainbow territory and 59.3 FG%. An even more dazzling performance came on February 2, 2011, when Durant tortured the New Orleans Hornets with 43 points, on top of a ridiculous 71.4% from three and 73.7 FG%. He shot 5-7 from deep and 14-19 from the field.
Also Read: What is KD’s Current Contract
#3 Washington Wizards. 52.1%
The Washington Wizards allowed Kevin Durant to shoot 52.1% of his field-goal attempts in 23 career games. Washington’s defensive rating norm of 109 from 2007 to 2021 is in the bottom 10 in the NBA. It is not surprising that Durant averaged 28.2 PPG in only 35.7 MPG of NBA action.
Kevin Durant’s best scoring output against the Wizards was on January 28, 2011, when he played a lung-busting 48 minutes of high-quality basketball. He ended up with 40 points on 15-28 shooting for a 53.6 FG%.
His latest masterpiece against Washington was this year, again on a January night, when he efficiently led the Brooklyn Nets with 37 points on 11-19 shooting from the field while adding a perfect 13-13 from the free-throw line.
#2 Brooklyn Nets. 52.7 FG%
Ironically enough, the team he is playing for now is one of the NBA franchises that Kevin Durant has been very good against when it comes to efficient shooting. In 18 games against the Nets, Durantula is shooting 52.7 FG%. Like the Wizards, the New Jersey Nets, who became the Brooklyn Nets in the 2012-13 campaign, have been so-so as a defensive team in KD’s career.
The 109.5 defensive rating in Durant's career only beckons one of the most efficient scorers in the game to come up with big-time numbers every time they meet. On December 28, 2009, sophomore Kevin Durant burned the New Jersey Nets for 40 points with a mind-numbing 15-22 clip.
The Kevin Durant effect was not only registered in the scoring column. In one of his game the Brooklyn Nets, he had 28 points in only 30 minutes and dished out 11 assists to completely manipulate the game from different areas. To top it off, he was a perfect 9-9 from the stripe and on a 60 FG% shooting.
#1 Oklahoma City Thunder. 52.7 FG%
Fittingly enough, it was against the Oklahoma City Thunder that encapsulated the scoring master's unbelievable abilities. Every basketball fan knows that Seattle/Oklahoma had a long and then tumultuous history with Kevin Durant. He played nine years for the team that drafted him and led them to a Finals appearance where they lost to the LeBron James-led 2012 Miami Heat.
KD, however, broke their hearts when he left OKC to join the rival Warriors just a year after giving up a 3-1 series lead against the same team in the playoffs. The stage was set for a high-strung and often chippy rivalry against OKC and the feisty Russell Westbrook.
In the 10 games that Kevin Durant played against the Thunder, he put up a 52.7 FG%, but he did it in the least number of minutes than against any team on the list. Seven of the ten games that Durant played against OKC came when Westbrook was the undisputed leader of Oklahoma.
The Slim Reaper edged Russ 5-2 in head-to-head matchups when Russ was with OKC. 6-4 overall when his team went up against the Thunder.
On January 18, 2017, just a few months after he spurned the Thunder, he showed everyone what OKC lost in free agency. He dumped 40 points on the Thunder spiked with 5-7 attempts from beyond the arc for 71.4 3P%. The eye-rolling stat was his 13-16 clip from the field for an absurd 81.3 FG%.
Guess the Lakers players!
