{"id":125672,"date":"2025-09-07T14:19:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125672\/"},"modified":"2025-09-07T14:19:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-07T14:19:07","slug":"rockets-kevin-durant-ranks-as-leagues-second-best-long-range-shooter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/125672\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets’ Kevin Durant Ranks as League’s Second-Best Long-Range Shooter"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin Durant is an NBA legend. He’s had one of the greatest NBA careers that we’ve ever seen.<\/p>\n

He’s not exactly universally liked, but few have been better at what he does than he is. He’s practically impossible to defend, because of his size and high release point.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Not to mention the fact that he can get to his spots possibly better than anyone. And he’s got wide shooting range.<\/p>\n

He was the league’s best overall shooter last season, by far. As a long-range shooter, he’s also deadly, converting on 43 percent of his attempts last season — his best since 2020-21.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he’s not a 3-point specialist. Nor does he want to be. He’s gone public about the fact that he still values the mid-range shot, which has become a lost art in the league today.<\/p>\n

Until the playoffs roll around and a team needs a bucket.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Speaking of needing buckets, the Houston Rockets didn’t address their need for a pure 3-point sniper all offseason (even though Seth Curry is still on the market).<\/p>\n

It’s one of their few holes on the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But perhaps they did address it, by way of Durant.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to NBA Insider Ricky O’Donnell<\/a>, Durant enters 2025-26 as one of the league’s most elite shooters from distance, ranking second behind only Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“On the brink of his 37th birthday, KD maintained his status as the game\u2019s greatest all-around shooter last year. Durant ripped 43 percent of his threes for a hopeless Phoenix Suns team, and he\u2019s about to step into a much better situation this season after being traded to the Houston Rockets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a 7\u20195 wingspan, KD\u2019s shot is virtually unblockable. He made 42.3 percent of his threes on \u201ctightly guarded\u201d attempts last year with a defender within four feet of him. Just about the only thing holding Durant back is his lack of volume: he only took six threes per game a year ago, which ranked No. 41 in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The future Hall of Famer prefers to work from mid-range, where he made 53.7 percent of his looks, which\u00a0ranked in the 96th percentile last season.”<\/p>\n

Durant figures to draw double teams on a nightly basis, which will benefit a myriad of players on the Rockets (Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., etc). He’s also underrated as a playmaker, as he typically makes the right reads as a passer, making it easy for teammates to play off of.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant is an NBA legend. He’s had one of the greatest NBA careers that we’ve ever seen.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125673,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-125672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}