Kevin Durant: How Much Better Can OKC Thunder Superstar Get?

Even though the Oklahoma City Thunder dropped Game 2 at home to let the Miami Heat tie up the 2012 NBA Finals, Kevin Durant was in spectacular form once again, affirming his spot among basketball's elite. 

How much better can he get? Has he reached his ceiling? 

The other 29 teams in the NBA sure hope that the 23-year-old scoring sensation has peaked out and is done growing into a legendary offensive machine, but they're in for a sad dose of reality. Quite a few think that Durant can improve on defense, but the small forward's offensive game can still make a few leaps and bounds as he ascends to the top of the league's food chain. 

Defense

Kevin Durant is never going to be strong enough to body up against power forwards in the post. His frame simply won't permit him to put on the weight necessary while maintaining his athleticism. 

Thanks to an increased focus on the defensive end this year, though, Durant did improve his perimeter defense quite significantly. He dropped his defensive rating from 107 last year to a career-best 101 this season. 

Those numbers need to be taken in context, though. As a team, the Thunder posted a defensive rating of 103.2 during the 2011-2012 season, compared to 107.2 during the year before. Durant's improvement on this end of the court was surely part of the reason for the team-wide boost in defensive rating, and he's now playing at an even higher level compared to the team average.

Because of his length, Durant prefers to contest shots with his arms instead of getting close with his body, which typically keeps him out of foul trouble. He also plays a style of defense that's relatively free of gambles, preferring to let Thabo Sefolosha and Russell Westbrook fill that role.

Unless he fundamentally changes his style of play and takes more risks, Durant isn't likely to improve much on defense. As he puts together more seasons like this one, though, the perception surrounding his effort on the more hard-nosed end of the floor will change as fans start to recognize the solid work he's putting forth. 

Passing

This is the area that Durant can improve the most. Going into this season, Durant was 55th out of 67 eligible small forwards in assist rate, according to ESPN's John Hollinger.

After averaging 2.5 or 2.6 assists per game for each of the first four years of his post-Texas basketball career, Durant's average popped up to 3.3 dimes per game this season, a number that not so coincidentally coincides with his point guard's decrease in assists per game. 

	2007-2008	2008-2009	2009-2010	2010-2011	2011-2012
AST%	12.0	13.5	13.5	13.2	17.5
TO%	12.9	12.2	11.7	10.6	14.

While Durant's turnover numbers (via Basketball-Reference.com) had slowly declined over the first few years of his career, they skyrocketed this past regular season and mitigated any effect that his increased assist percentages had on the Thunder offense. 

Durant is trying to facilitate more, which is good, but he's not always picking and choosing the right spots to do so. As a caveat, it is important to note that quite a few of these turnovers came while Durant was dribbling or in the process of attempting to shoot the ball. 

The weakest part of Durant's overall game—even including his skinny arms—has always been his lack of elite court vision. Once he develops this over time and starts making the right passes, something he certainly has the capability of doing, teams won't be able to double-team him quite as often and the OKC offense will be even more deadly. 

Scoring

Kevin Durant has led the league in scoring each of the past three seasons. Since he's only been in the league for five years, that means that Durant has won the scoring title over half of the seasons he's been in the league. 

Surely he can't get better in this area, right? 

Wrong. 

Durant had his most efficient season shooting the ball yet, but it can still get better. Picking and choosing the spots to let fly, the small forward posted career-best true shooting percentages and effective field goal percentages of 61.0 and 51.7, respectively. 

It's how he gets his points that can still improve. Durant is remarkably good in three major subdivisions of the scoring category: transition, perimeter/mid-range shooting and slashing. 

When Durant gets the ball on a fast break, you may as well concede the basket to him. He gets down the court too fast and can finish at any angle with his spidery arms. Scarily enough, this isn't the best facet of his scoring game. 

That facet would be his jumper. Durant's jump-shot is the very definition of silky-smooth, and he will hit it every time he's given even a millimeter of extra space. His ability to slash to the basket and either finish at the rim or draw contact is superb as well. 

It's the post where Durant struggles. Actually, that's inaccurate, because struggling would imply that he actually attempts to shoot with his back to the basket. When was the last time you saw Durant do that? 

Just imagine if it was Durant and not LeBron James who had spent the summer working with Hakeem Olajuwon. Imagine if he was using post moves to baffle the opposition and had enjoyed the same increase in offensive efficiency that LeBron did as a result. 

Could he have averaged 35 points per game? 40, even?

Durant will never be as good on the block as the small forward he'll always be measured against, seeing as they're both contemporaries and the clear top two in the world. He doesn't have the strength necessary to back down defenders and avoid getting pushed out to the perimeter.

However, the Thunder's primary scoring option does have the footwork and length to learn a few moves and confuse defenders where he can't bully them. If he does that, the sky is the limit.

Enjoy watching Durant now, but just remember that you're going to see better.