SAN DIEGO — At 33 years old and having earned every basketball achievement known to mankind, Kevin Durant is still growing and learning. And one thing he’s learning is to shrug off outside expectations and tune out the outside noise.
“Everything I’ve done is about evolution and development,” Durant said Thursday after the Nets’ training camp practice at the University of San Diego. “I may sound like a broken record at this point, but I really feel like I’ve been growing every single day, and I’m starting to understand the game a little bit more, and I kind of simplified it for myself.
“I try not to chase anything outside of just being the best that I can be on the floor. I know that is cliché and simple, but I really try to approach every rep as trying to be the best I can be, and everything else outside of that will take care of itself. So the results, if I prepare the right way, will handle themselves. Yeah, it’s made me at ease a little bit.”
Being the best he can be has made Durant arguably the best in the world.
A four-time scoring champ and two-time NBA Finals MVP, there’s little Durant hasn’t done. But he admits, in his earlier years as he was still carving out his place in the NBA, he obsessed too much on what was being said, written, tweeted or expected.
The Durant of a decade ago — OK, let’s be fair, less than a decade — was nowhere near as at ease as the KD of today. Now, he’s learning to block all that out and focus on what matters.
“For sure,” said Durant. “You want to establish yourself in the league. … Each one of us individually, there’s a part of you that wants to establish yourself in this league, carve out your niche in this league.
“Sometimes, you may overthink it and may think too much about reactions and opinions of others because you’re on the journey to perfection. But start to relax a little bit and understand what this is about and understand the long game, and it definitely made my mental a little bit more at ease coming to the gym every day and not focusing on that stuff.”
Now, Durant is focusing every day, every practice on getting better — even though many view him as already being the best.
And he’s focusing on helping the Nets win the city’s first title since 2011 (and Brooklyn’s first since 1955). Durant, James Harden and Kyrie Irving all coming into training camp healthy has stamped the Nets as prohibitive favorites, but Durant will be unfazed by that target on their collective backs.
“Outside pressure don’t really matter much,” Durant said. “We all internally put pressure on ourselves because we hold ourselves to a high standard, and you want to play well every time you step out there. That’s just who we are as competitors.
“As far as the outside noise, no disrespect for [media members], for our families, friends and even our fans expecting us to do so much and if we don’t live up to those; at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. But we want to come out and play a great brand of basketball every night, and we hold ourselves to that standard. I expect us to come out there with some swagger and some intensity. But outside noise should not matter much to this group.”