In a surprising and candid interview about his future, Kevin Durant told Chris Haynes of ESPN that he can see himself retiring from the NBA at age 35, five seasons from now.
“This game, your craft, you have to continue studying it,” Durant told ESPN. “No matter how much you enjoy it, nobody wants to be in school that long. I know I don’t. At some point, you have to be ready to graduate. Thirty-five, that’s just a number in my mind.”
Durant, 29, just completed his 11th NBA season since being drafted by Seattle with the second overall pick in 2007-08 at age 19. His 20,913 career points put him in line to possibly approach Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s all-time scoring record of 38,387 points once all is said and done. Durant told Haynes, however, that he is not interested in playing just to chase such records.
“It’s a cool accomplishment to be up there with the greats and to be considered someone who can potentially chase that, or beat that, but I’m not playing for that,” Durant said.
Durant said he doesn’t think he’ll have a problem moving on from basketball.
“Especially if I continue to approach the game the right way every day like I’ve been doing, hell yeah. Hell yeah I can move on,” he said. “No matter how many points I score, no matter how many people I pass up, no matter how many points I leave on the table, my legacy, as we always like to talk about, I can go up and ask any person who has ever seen me play and they’ll have a different way of viewing my game. So it’s hard for me to go out there and play for that type of stuff because it changes through so many people. So many groups of people probably view my game differently. So, it’s hard for me to focus on that.
“But I will focus on the people that love me the most, that encourage me, that pour into me and vice versa. I value what they say and how they feel about me more so than anything because that’s who I really went through this journey with, those people. That’s what my legacy lies in. I know they’re going to view it as a perfect career no matter what.”
Asked about what Durant would do after a relatively early retirement, the two-time NBA Finals MVP isn’t sure yet.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Durant said. “That’s the beauty. I’d hate to say, ‘Man, I don’t want to do this, do that’ when I’m done playing. I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m going to still be in love with the game and want to be around it every day. Who knows? I might want to be a coach or a GM or an owner or somebody that works guys out or somebody that’s trying to tell basketball stories like Kobe [Bryant]. Who knows?
“I feel like I have options. I’m young, I’m still learning life and about basketball. I have a whole life ahead of me that I’m excited about, and I thank basketball for opening up so many doors for me.”
