{"id":150208,"date":"2025-09-17T17:15:12","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T17:15:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/150208\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T17:15:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T17:15:12","slug":"rockets-star-kevin-durant-hopes-to-extend-nba-career-to-age-40-and-perhaps-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/150208\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets star Kevin Durant hopes to extend NBA career to age 40 and perhaps beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"

Modern sports science is improving by the year, and Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> forward LeBron James has continued to play at an All-Star level since turning 40 years old last year.<\/p>\n

Could the same happen in the next few years with Houston Rockets<\/a> star Kevin Durant?<\/p>\n

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Durant turns 37 years old later this month, and as things stand, the 2025-26 season is the final year of his existing contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But Durant is still performing at an elite level, and he\u2019s hopeful that will continue for some time. (So, too, are the Rockets \u2014 hence this offseason\u2019s trade<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

This week, the former Most Valuable Player (MVP) and future Hall of Famer took part in a sit-down interview at CNBC and Boardroom\u2019s annual \u201cGame Plan<\/a>\u201d summit. As part of that interview, Durant was asked about the prospect of retirement, and he made it clear that it\u2019s not immediately in the cards.<\/p>\n

Via Law Murray of The Athletic<\/a>, here\u2019s what Durant said when asked how much longer he wants to play in the NBA:<\/p>\n

As long as I can. I haven\u2019t put a number on it. I obviously think about retirement every year, and what it would be like. … I don\u2019t even want to think about it right now, but when people are asking me these questions every day, I can\u2019t help myself (laughs).<\/p>\n

But I still enjoy going to the gym, and I enjoy that struggle of getting better every day, and grinding as an NBA player. Hopefully in my 40s, I can play until then.<\/p>\n

James turns 41 years old in December, and Tom Brady played quarterback in the NFL until after his 45th birthday. So, there is at least some recent precedent for a star athlete playing at a high level through that window.<\/p>\n

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Of course, should Durant suffer a major injury or his play show signs of an age related downturn, the thinking could change. But as of September 2025, that has yet to happen.<\/p>\n

With the Phoenix Suns last season, Durant averaged 26.6 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game while shooting an extremely efficient 52.7% overall and 43.0% on 3-pointers. Those are fantastic individual numbers for any age, let alone 36, and Durant\u2019s expectation is to have similar success in his age-37 season with the Rockets.<\/p>\n

Should Houston ultimately extend his contract<\/a> \u2014 and if Durant wants to end his career with the Rockets, as some reports have suggested<\/a> \u2014 playing into his 40s could give him at least four seasons in Houston before retirement becomes more of a consideration.<\/p>\n

As for the here and now, training camp for the 2025-26 campaign opens on Tuesday, Sept. 30, a day after Durant\u2019s 37th birthday.<\/p>\n

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More: How will Kevin Durant\u2019s game age in Houston? NBA executives see \u2018new normal\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Kevin Durant hopes to extend NBA career to age 40 and perhaps beyond<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Modern sports science is improving by the year, and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James has continued to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7220,7216,7896,7232,590,7185,85],"class_list":["post-150208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-houston-rockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-lebron-james","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-nba","tag-phoenix-suns","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150208","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=150208"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150208\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150208"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150208"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150208"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}