Two days after winning Finals MVP and his first NBA title, Kevin Durant joined the Bill Simmons Podcast to reflect on his first season in Golden State.
The two touched on a number of subjects, but perhaps the most interesting tidbit came during a discussion about Kyrie Irving. Durant was effusive with his praise of the point guard, and went so far as to say that he thinks Irving is a better player skill wise than Hall-of-Famer Allen Iverson.
“I was telling some of my friends after Game 2, I was like, Kyrie, he just makes you happy when you watch him play. You just smile when you watch him play because for somebody to be that skilled, you know he had to work tirelessly at it. The stuff he has in his package is next-level stuff that you can try to teach your kids to do it, but you’ll never be able to do it.
“I’ve never seen somebody block his layup, and he’s 6-2. I’ve never seen one person pin his layup on the glass—not one—because the spin he got on it and he don’t have to look at it. I just got so much respect for him because I know how much work he put in to be that good. I never seen nobody like him.” […]
“Kyrie is better than AI to me. I’m going from like skill for skill. His handle is better. We might have to cut that out—I don’t want no problems with AI. Y’all might have to cut that one. I don’t want that to get out. I’m just saying I feel like Kyrie got more skill.”
Irving, 25, was a scoring machine in the last two Finals’ series against Golden State, averaging 29.4 points per game in 2017, and 27.1 in 2016, included a title-clinch fade away 3 in Game 7.