When I was a kid, we used to sing “Time is My Friend” by Julie Andrews at assemblies. I didn’t think much of it at the time.
At 38, I’m reevaluating my relationship with time. Time is decidedly not my friend. It’s closer to a (literal) mortal enemy. Would a friend ensure that I had periodic back pain? Does a friend force you to compromise all your dreams? What kind of friend is time?
Time is not an NBA player’s friend, either. This whole intro has largely been a circuitous route around the old “Father Time is undefeated” cliche. Well, there it is. Father Time is undefeated, and so is the sports aphorism.
Ask a Lakers fan. LeBron James is no longer LeBron James. He’s averaging 14.0 points and 7.8 assists per game across the five games he’s managed to suit up for this year. He just scored fewer than 10 points in a game for the first time in approximately several eons. It has finally happened.
On a less morose note: 14 and 8 at the age of 40? Excuse me? Yes, James is a shell of his former self, in the same way that a Komodo dragon is a relative of a dinosaur. If you want to wrestle a Komodo dragon, be my guest.
All of which brings us to Kevin Durant.
Rockets’ Kevin Durant can’t play forever
James is 40. Durant is 37. From a social standpoint, they’re peers, but in NBA terms, those three years are meaningful.
At 37, Durant is averaging 25.0 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 3.7 assists. He’s got a 61.4 True Shooting % (TS%) and a 2.3 Box Plus/Minus (BPM). This is not prime Durant, but it’s still a star player.
Will that still be true next year?
Let’s look at James at 38. In 2022-23, he averaged 28.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 6.8 assists per game with a 58.3 TS% and 6.1 BPM. If we’re strictly using this comparison, we can conclude that Durant will still be star-caliber next year:
But that would be dreadful logic.
Durant is not James. James is not Durant. BPM shines on James’s more holistic statistical production. For Durant, the key stats to look at are points per game and TS%. His combination of volume and efficiency this year is passable, but the situation is tenuous. A slight decline in efficiency, and Durant is suddenly just not that efficient.
Luckily, James’ TS% increased in his age-39 season.
The point of the comparison is to engender hope. James staved off age-related decline until 40. If Durant can do the same, he’ll be a star scorer for the Rockets for three more seasons.
I wouldn’t count on it.
Still, there’s strong hope that he can give the Rockets a season or two more. For argument’s sake, let’s assume Durant has a nearly identical 2026-27 season, and noticeably declines in 2027-28:
Is that enough to justify having acquired him?
Rockets can’t regret Durant acquisition
Time is Jalen Green’s friend, but they may not be as close as you think. His statistical projection seems bleak. If you trust DARKO (“Daily Adjusted and Regressed Kalman Optimized“), a “composite predictive metric that uses box score and plus-minus stats”, Green is a bit ahead of Zach LaVine at 24 and well behind Devin Booker.
That checks out. Even if you don’t like those stats, it feels like a fair projection for Green. He still has the potential to be a bit better than Zach LaVine.
That’s Zach “no NBA team wants him” LaVine, also known as Zach “I’ll get you 25, but I do so little else that it won’t help us win” LaVine. If that’s Green’s outlook, the Rockets shed a long-term albatross contract.
Now, if you like Green, you’ll feel differently. Fair. You’re entitled to your opinion. You may also think Khaman Maluach is a guy. It’s too early to call that one in either direction.
Here’s the point: if you’re low on Green, flipping him and the 10th pick for even two years of this level of Durant’s production was a sound process. Still, the Rockets need to understand that nothing lasts forever. Durant is old, and he’s getting older. There’s another cliche about time: