Kevin Durant vs. LeBron James: Contrasting Styles of NBA Superstardom

Prior to the Oklahoma City Thunder's 120-109 victory over the Golden State Warriors last Friday night, Kevin Durant did something well out of the ordinary, at least for an NBA talent of his caliber.

He asked a reporter a question.

Which isn't all that strange in and of itself, until you consider that he was the one who instigated the conversation.

But what's most remarkable about the whole situation isn't the fact that Durant—a 23-year-old kid who's already won two scoring titles, a FIBA World Championship and been elected to the All-Star Game three times—asked a question or that he went out of his way to do so.

It's what "The Durantula" asked Mark Steinmetz of CSNBayArea.com, and the exchange that ensued, that was most remarkable, that afforded an illustrative glimpse into what sets the next generation of NBA superstars apart from the previous ones of the post-Michael Jordan era:

"

I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was Durant, whom I’d never met.

“Hey my man, I’ve got a question for you,” Durant said. “Why does everyone want to talk about who the best player is on our team, whether it’s me or Russell [Westbrook]? Why does everyone worry about that?”

Naturally, I was defensive and told Durant that’s not what I was talking about on television.

“I know,” he said. “But you’re in the media so maybe you know why some writers and guys like that do it. I just don’t get it.”

“I’m not sure,” I answered.

“I mean, we’re on the same team, Russell and me, so what does it matter?” Durant said. “Who cares whether he’s better than me or I’m better than him?”

“Well, you know, the media does that kind of stuff every once in a while,” I said, unabashedly throwing my media brethren under the bus. “You know, it happens here some with Monta Ellis and Stephen Curry.”

Durant nodded.

“Thanks,” Durant said. “It’s just that we’re on the same team, you know? So it doesn’t matter. Who cares?”

“You’re probably right,” I said. “I guess it doesn’t really matter.”

With that, Durant thanked me one more time and while walking away said ... “I just have a lot of questions, that’s all.”

"

The NBA's most famous faces don't usually have any questions, much less "a lot of questions," for folks in the media, unless there's room for venom or some sort of prerogative underlying their queries.

Durant certainly had a motive here, just not one that anybody would expect.

Stop trying to compare me with my teammate. All that matters is that we're winning. I couldn't care less who gets the credit.

The Summer of Slam

The pinnacle of unselfishness, coming from one of basketball's most precocious young talents, just a year-and-a-half removed from arguably the most egotistical moment in the history of professional sports.

The Summer of 2010 will forever live in roundball infamy as the Summer of LeBron James, the Summer of "The Decision".

The Summer when the "ME" Generation—that generation of players who entered the NBA as high school kids and one-and-dones en masse—snatched their new-found free agency with gusto and smeared it across our TVs, computers screens and Twitter feeds like those insufferable kids who were always the first on the block with the hot new toy and so enjoyed rubbing it everyone else's faces.

Well, at least LeBron did.

With an hour-long special. In primetime. On ESPN. Sitting next to Jim Gray.

Who doesn't even work for ESPN.

The dude with the self-applied sobriquet of "King James" gave everyone the middle finger that day—the Cleveland Cavaliers, the people of Ohio, the viewing public and even the Worldwide Leader in Sports—because he could.

Before that, he paraded grown men, serious men who run multimillion-dollar sports franchises, through the offices of his sputtering public relations firm, to have them dazzle him with fancy presentations and blueprints for success and exorbitant appeals for him to come and play in their respective cities.

Because he could...and because he gave up the privilege to be wined and dined by real adults while they puckered up next to his rear end (i.e. recruited) when it was clear that LeBron James, Akron's Prodigal Son, would be taking his talents from St. Vincent St. Mary's straight to the NBA.

He could've just as easily gone about his time as a free agent like most do—visiting privately with basketball executives, discussing his options with friends and family, mulling over the possibilities on his own—before signing with the Miami Heat.

But, of course, that wasn't about to happen. This was LeBron James we were talking about, the most gifted athlete to ever grace the NBA with his presence, a kid who so relished being the biggest and the best there ever was, in ego as much as in game, that he went out of his way to rewrite the rules of how players go about their business and, to a lesser extent, how championship-caliber teams are put together.

The day before "The Decision," Kevin Durant tweeted this to his followers:

That was it. No glorified press conference. No Boys and Girls Club filled with adoring children. No television cameras or entourages pouring out the door.

Just 140 characters, with a few spelling errors sprinkled in here and there.

And five years and $86 million, plenty for a 21-year-old heading into just his third season as a pro to get excited about.

Arachnids and Royalty

But the dichotomies between these two league-defining talents don't simply dissolve when they step on the hardwood, though each remains a paradox unto himself.

A divide within a divide within a divide. That's enough to leave even Cobb's head spinning.

On the one hand is Durant, a shooting guard as tall as a center who, despite his size and ability to handle the ball, does one thing and one thing very, very well—put points on the board. In fact, he does that so well that he stands as not only the youngest scoring champion in NBA history, but also the youngest back-to-back scoring champion in NBA history.

For a guy as tall as he is, Durant doesn't rebound much (6.5 per game for his career), with the bulk of his boards coming as a happenstance byproduct of his height rather than as the inevitable outcome of a concerted effort.

Though, to be fair, Durant's lithe frame (6'9, 235 pounds) isn't necessarily conducive to banging with the big boys under the bucket. 

Nor does he distribute as much (2.7 assists per game) as his ball-handling acumen might suggest.

Still, Durant has no trouble hoisting the ball toward the basket with dazzling regularity (19 shots per game).

As for LeBron, outside of Magic Johnson and Oscar Robertson, he's arguably the most versatile player to ever grace the NBA. To call LBJ a "jack of all trades" would be to denigrate how masterfully he engages in every phase of the game—from scoring (27.7 points per game) and rebounding (7.1 boards) to dishing (7.0 assists) and thieving (1.7 steals).

And that's without mentioning how incredible an athlete he is for a 6'8, 250-pound behemoth, or how his game has expanded every year, to the point where James is now a more-than-reliable post-up presence for the Heat.

Ironically enough, it's Durant, the single-minded scorer, who's lauded as the consummate team player and James, the do-everything virtuoso, who's derided as the "me-first" ball hog.

A distinction made even more painfully perplexing by LeBron's deference and inability to come through in the clutch.

The Mamba Don't Mambo

Yet, when it comes to comparing LeBron to other great players in the NBA today, the conversation almost inevitably turns to Kobe Bryant, despite the gap in age and accomplishment being so much narrower between James and Durant.

Kobe has already been a league MVP, a two-time NBA Finals MVP, a five-time champion, a 14-time All-Star (with four All-Star MVPs), a two-time scoring champ, a 14-time All-NBA performer and an 11-time All-Defensive Team performer. He'll soon surpass former teammate (and future Hall-of-Famer) Shaquille O'Neal for fifth on the league's all-time career scoring list and figures to climb even higher before he calls it quits.

Durant and LeBron may one day match, or even exceed, Kobe's unbelievable achievements, but for now, they're still both a long ways away from Bryant's stratosphere.

And, frankly, the Black Mamba likely doesn't care; he's busy chasing ghosts and legends, the kind that win championships and redefine the game and run NBA franchises into the ground when Father Time gets in the way.

The real rivalry brewing in the NBA is, and should be, between King James and The Durantula.  

Both James and Durant were named Rookie of the Year in their respective debut seasons and have been perennial All-Stars since their sophomore campaigns. Durant owns more scoring titles (2) than does James (1), though LeBron's two MVPs trump The Durantula's lack thereof.

Durant could move a big step closer to LeBron by capturing his first Maurice Podoloff Trophy at season's end.

Most importantly, neither has yet captured an NBA title. That could and may well change within a matter of months.

Watch the Throne

In the meantime, LeBron remains, in the eyes of many, the best player in the NBA today (whatever that means), though Durant may be closer to usurping the throne from King James than he's letting on.

Kenny "The Jet" Smith inspired incredulity in Chris Webber and Charles Barkley last year when he proclaimed on TNT's "Inside the NBA" that Durant would be the best player in basketball in three year's time:

And, in what is shaping up to be a testament to how good Durant is and how rapidly he is improving, Smith went out on a limb once again in mid-January, proclaiming that Durant had already surpassed LeBron in the NBA hierarchy:

That's not to say that "The Jet" is necessarily "right" or "wrong," though he deserves credit for shifting the chatter from Kobe v. LeBron to LeBron v. Durant.

As close as he is to LeBron's level, Durant still has some heavy lifting to do before anyone can comfortably proclaim him to be the best in basketball. Personal accolades aside, Durant has yet to play in an NBA Finals series while LeBron has been twice—first, as a 22-year-old kid carrying a largely mediocre Cleveland Cavaliers team out of the Eastern Conference, and then as the most prominent member of Miami's Big Three last year.

Granted, LeBron's team didn't win either time (against teams from Texas), but the appearances still factor prominently into his resume.

That is, unless Durant adds a ring to his finger first. At that point, LeBron just might be left chasing Durant in the ubiquitous "Who's best?" debate.

Follow the Leader

James, though, has already been following in Durant's footsteps off the court. While Durant has long demonstrated uncanny humility and grace for an athlete of his stature, James only now seems to be acting like a real adult. No longer is LeBron parading around like a spoiled, entitled brat—not entirely, anyway.

The fact that LeBron, ego and all, has willingly poked fun at his own pompous championship predictions of yesteryear in national advertisements speaks volumes of the tremendous strides he's taken toward being a less insufferable public figure.

That being said, The King still clearly has some work to do in that department. For example, James pulled a rather interesting publicity stunt during the lockout, staging a "Flag Football Classic" at the University of Akron, media attendance and Ustream Internet viewing access included.

Who was his chief opponent? Kevin Durant.

And why Durant? Because it was Durant who first "pioneered" the idea of spending free time during the NBA lockout playing flag football. Durant did so somewhat surreptitiously with a fraternity intramural team at Oklahoma State.

Without the benefit of carefully engineered documentation and dissemination. 

By the way, Team James defeated Team Durant, 70-63, though Durant still dominated in the "hipster cred" ledger.

Generation Next

Originality has never been LeBron's strong suit, though he's certainly not alone in that department among his peers. LeBron is the face of what may well be deemed the NBA's "ME" Generation, a collection of stars drafted within a few years of each other who seem more concerned with cementing their own legacies, well in advance of retirement, than winning the "right way" or setting a good example for players yet to come.

This is the generation that, now in its collective prime, has made a habit of coalescing (or attempting to coalesce) in the nation's metropolises, where they can use the bright lights of big cities and the star power of their new buddy-buddy teammates as multiplying factors for their own global brands.

In this way, LeBron was the one who blazed the trail (not to Portland, of course). Carmelo Anthony followed suit by forcing his way to the New York Knicks to join up with Amar'e Stoudemire.

(What a charming partnership that's turned out to be.)

Chris Paul kept the train rolling post-lockout with a woulda-coulda-shoulda-been trade to the Los Angeles Lakers, though commissioner David Stern's redirect to Blake Griffin and the Clippers has worked out fine (just fine) for CP3.

Soon enough, Dwight Howard is bound to keep the trend alive on his way to LA, New Jersey/Brooklyn or Dallas...or whichever team strikes his pallet as the preferred flavor du jour.

Not that there's necessarily anything wrong with players having the ability to seek employment wherever they so please and using their leverage as superstars to pursue those ends.

Rather, it's how LeBron and his compatriots have gone about the process—throwing their teammates under the bus, hijacking the hopes of their former franchises and fans (intentionally or not), seeking out attention and expansion of their "global brands" throughout—that's cast them in such a negative light.

And then there's the new generation of up-and-coming, early-to-mid-20-somethings, a group of which Durant is the face, along with Derrick Rose, Kevin Love and Blake Griffin.

A group that's let its spectacular play on the court do the talking, that seems more willing to make it work in smaller markets and with franchises of lesser repute, that appears to understand and embrace that worldwide fame and individual accolades are the byproducts of team success, not the objects of a dedicated pursuit.

These two countervailing forces of the NBA's split superstar culture may well come to a head in the spring, if the Miami Heat and the Oklahoma City Thunder emerge from East and West to clash in the 2012 NBA Finals. The ring will be the thing on everyone's minds, particularly LeBron James' and Kevin Durant's.

Winning the Future

But it won't be the only, or even most important, thing at stake. LeBron and Durant would be battling for the hearts and minds of the superstars and franchise cornerstones yet to come. Such would put these two toe-to-toe in a tussle over whether the NBA will be a "Me" league or a "We" league for the foreseeable future.

A win for LeBron would essentially validate his particular path to "Title Town"—that is, seeking out greener pastures in bigger media markets, smiling like the Cheshire Cat, while leaving disappointment and resentment in his wake.

Should Durant lead the Thunder to victory, though, perhaps those kids playing ball at the park or coming up through the high school and college ranks would be reminded that they, too, can win championships and pursue legendary careers in places other than New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Miami and Chicago.

That multimillion-dollar shoe deals and international acclaim will come to them in time, regardless of where and with whom they play, so long as they win.

That humility and greatness aren't mutually exclusive, a curious notion to which the Hall-of-Fame careers of Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki have been a shining testament.

So while LeBron, as the Pied Piper of his ilk, would likely sit back and field question after question about where a title would place him among the pantheon of the NBA's all-time greats, Durant, the league's young moral arbiter, would be busy tapping shoulders and seeking answers of his own, about winning championships and sharing the glory with his teammates.

Whether anyone notices or not. 

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