3 Best scoring seasons in his NBA career by Kevin Durant in terms of Offensive Rating
Kevin Durant has been described as the best player in today's NBA and he is certainly one of the best scorers in the history of the league. To some, Durant is the greatest scorer ever seen in the NBA due to his skill set, length and efficiency.
Durant has won four NBA scoring titles in his illustrious career, along with one NBA MVP award and a couple of Finals MVPs. He's also made it to 11 All-Star games and nine All-NBA teams and is looking for his third NBA championship in 2022.
In terms of scoring average per game over the span of an entire career, Kevin Durant ranks fifth in NBA history. KD is the leader in scoring averages in today's NBA among players with at least 400 games played.
Kevin Durant's top three offensive seasons of his NBA career in terms of offensive rating (ORtg)
Durant's career average of points per game in the regular season is at 27.02 points per game, and his career shooting split is a fantastic 49/38/88.
He could not stop the Brooklyn Nets from losing on Opening Night of the 2021-22 NBA season. However, Durant scored a solid 32 points against the defending champion Milwaukee Bucks and scored 13 of his 25 field goals.
In this article, we will take a different look at Kevin Durant's offensive game in his NBA career. Offensive Rating isn't the end-all-be-all to measure the offensive impact of an NBA player, but it is certainly a good way to study a player's offensive efficiency for his team.
We will give you Kevin Durant's three-best NBA seasons of his career in terms of Offensive Rating.
Offensive Rating is explained by Basketball-Reference.com in the following manner:
"Individual offensive rating is the number of points produced by a player per hundred total individual possessions. In other words, 'How many points is a player likely to generate when he tries? The basic building blocks of the Offensive Rating calculation are Individual Total Possessions and Individual Points Produced".
Kevin Durant's career Offensive Rating is 117.5, which ranks 14th among active NBA players.
Without further ado, let us take a look.
#3 2012-13 NBA season
In Kevin Durant's sixth season in the NBA, the unbelievable scorer had already won three scoring titles. He started that season having won the last three scoring crowns in the league, with an average of 28.7 points per game throughout those three years (226 games).
In the 2012-13 NBA season, however, Durant did not lead the NBA in scoring during the regular season. But he had the third-best Offensive Rating of his career at 122, which ranked fifth in the NBA.
Durant averaged 28.1 points per game during the 2012-13 regular season and put up his only 50/40/90 season so far with a 51/41/90 shooting split.
#2 2013-14 NBA season
The 2013-14 NBA season was Kevin Durant's greatest regular-season performance of his career. It earned him the solitary NBA MVP award for his illustrious career so far.
Durant regained his throne as the NBA's top scorer that year, winning his fourth scoring title and fourth in five seasons. KD earned 119 of the 125 first-place votes in the NBA MVP balloting that year because his regular-season was simply impressive.
After posting a career-high in terms of points per game in a single season at 32, Durant also had his second-highest Offensive Rating, at 123.
He was third in the NBA in Offensive Rating in the 2013-14 season, and advanced stats helped his MVP case. He led the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating (PER), Offensive Win Shares, Win Shares, Offensive Box Plus/Minus, Box Plus/Minus and Value Over Replacement Player.
#1 2016-17 NBA season
Kevin Durant excelled in arguably the greatest offensive NBA team ever assembled. After his controversial move from the OKC Thunder to the Golden State Warriors in 2016, Durant entered the 2016-17 season as a 'villain' for taking what many believe was a 'soft' move. That was due to Durant's decision to go to the team that had eliminated him in the previous NBA postseason and had a record regular season the previous year.
Anyway, the 2016-17 NBA season resulted in success for the Golden State Warriors. They posted a 67-15 regular-season record and went 16-1 in the NBA Playoffs (best record in postseason history).
Durant emerged as the 2017 NBA Finals MVP after dominating offensively, and his regular season had also been extraordinary, although he missed 20 games. In 62 appearances, Kevin Durant played 2,070 minutes in that year's regular season, and he had a 125 Offensive Rating, the best of his career and the eighth in the league that year.
Kevin Durant put up 25.1 points per game in the 2016-17 regular season with a career-best 53.7% field-goal percentage.
Also Read: What is Kevin Durant’s Current Contract?