{"id":501355,"date":"2026-03-03T14:23:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501355\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T14:23:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:23:11","slug":"kevin-durant-says-a-wide-open-nba-playoff-race-is-fun-and-its-hard-to-argue-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/501355\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant says a wide-open NBA playoff race is fun and it\u2019s hard to argue with that"},"content":{"rendered":"

MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant<\/a> has been in the NBA for 18 seasons, 19 counting the one he missed while recovering from an Achilles tear. And in many of those seasons, there were clear favorites in the race to make the NBA Finals when the calendar flipped to March.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t feel that way this season.<\/p>\n

Things seem wide open, with a slew of very realistic title contenders in both conferences. And Durant \u2014 part of a Houston Rockets<\/a> team that appears to be one of those contending clubs \u2014 isn\u2019t complaining about it, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank God for second aprons and the first aprons,\u201d Durant said.<\/p>\n

Hard to imagine those words being said a few years ago, but here we are. And with the current collective bargaining agreement and aprons \u2014 payroll levels that, if exceeded, seriously limit a team\u2019s options on player movement and acquisition \u2014 Durant\u2019s stance is tough to argue against. <\/p>\n

Detroit (probably unexpectedly) and defending champion Oklahoma City (as expected) have separated themselves a bit atop the Eastern and Western conferences. The second-place teams right now \u2014 Boston in the East, San Antonio in the West \u2014 have to be considered surprises on some level, given how the Celtics haven\u2019t had Jayson Tatum<\/a> and how the Spurs haven\u2019t won a playoff series since Victor Wembanyama<\/a> was 13.<\/p>\n

Would it surprise anyone if the Pistons, the Celtics, or New York or Cleveland emerged from the East? Probably not. Would it surprise anyone if the Thunder, the Spurs, Houston, Minnesota or Denver survived the playoff gauntlet in the West? Again, probably not. And feel free to add a few other teams to those lists as well.<\/p>\n

Durant was asked about the wide-open feel to this title race over the weekend. His eyes lit up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted some parity and I think the last few years we\u2019ve gotten exactly that,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, it\u2019s fun for everybody watching the game, not knowing exactly who\u2019s going to be around at the end of the season. And as a team, it gives you confidence to know that even though you don\u2019t play your best ball around this time, nobody really is. … Teams are trying to figure out which lineups they want to use, (after) trades, all of that stuff, so it\u2019s a fun time to be in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fun. That\u2019s an interesting choice of words right now.<\/p>\n

The West is brutally tough, as almost always seems to be the case. Houston started Monday in third, just two losses ahead of the sixth-place Los Angeles Lakers<\/a>, just 3 1\/2 games ahead of seventh-place Phoenix. On that side of the league, as has been the case in each of the last two seasons, a .600 winning percentage in the regular season probably won\u2019t even be good enough to guarantee home-court advantage in Round 1 of the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Fun?<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if fun\u2019s the word,\u201d Rockets coach Ime Udoka said. \u201cYou try to handle your own business and take care of yourself and be playing the right way and try to get healthy, healthier, as healthy as you can be going into the playoffs. You can\u2019t afford to have off nights in our conference. You can go from 3 to 7 pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder are still heavy favorites to win the title, almost even-money (+150) according to Bet MGM Sportsbook, with the Nuggets (+700) and Spurs (+750). Cleveland is a slight favorite to win the East, followed by Boston and Detroit.<\/p>\n

But this is the NBA\u2019s parity era \u2014 seven franchises have won titles in the last seven years, a run never before seen in league history. It\u2019s not inconceivable to think an eighth different champion is on the way. Durant obviously hopes the Rockets will be the next name on that list, and there\u2019s no shortage of teams that think they can make title runs as well.<\/p>\n

Believe it or not, the playoffs start next month. The final 20 games are about positioning for some teams, building momentum for others, and all with the goal of figuring out what works best when the games mean the most.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never know who can make a run in the playoffs,\u201d Durant said. \u201dWe\u2019re looking forward to using these games to continue to get better and keep growing and we\u2019ll see what happens.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Around The NBA analyzes the biggest topics in the NBA during the season.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n

Tim Reynolds, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI (AP) \u2014 Kevin Durant has been in the NBA for 18 seasons, 19 counting the one he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501356,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-501355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501355\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}