What’s Keeping KD, Steph, and LeBron Going?
The three defining NBA players of this generation are nearing the ends of their storied careers. What’s left to chase? “Of course, championships and accolades and awards are important,” Kevin Durant told The Ringer, “but I didn’t think about that as a kid.”
Before the unbridled chaos of the NBA trade deadline—before he was swept up in another wave of rumors, before the Golden State Warriors tried (and failed) to woo him back, before pundits fretted once more about his tangled legacy—Kevin Durant quietly passed through Brooklyn and presented a picture of basketball contentment.
It was late January, and the Phoenix Suns were visiting Barclays Center, Durant’s prior workplace for three and a half fretful seasons. It had been nearly two years since Durant had forced the Nets to trade him. But on this night, he sounded more sentimental than spiteful, more appreciative than aggrieved.
He waxed nostalgic about the Nets’ 2021 playoff run, his brief (at times brilliant) partnership with Kyrie Irving and James Harden, his affinity for Brooklyn’s fans and for the arena itself, which he called his second favorite (of course, after Phoenix’s Footprint Center).
“Some great times, man, some fun moments,” Durant said. “It didn’t culminate into a championship. But there’s people that have season tickets who get in their car in the cold, come down and watch us play, they still remember us. … And you feel that love when I come through here.”
The Suns won in a rout that night, a brief respite from their own dysfunction and disappointment. Phoenix, built around a trio of high-priced stars in Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal, was supposed to be a title contender. Instead, the Suns are hovering around .500 and fighting for relevance. They tried desperately to land Jimmy Butler before the trade deadline. They discussed a multi-team deal for Butler that would have sent Durant to Golden State—where he could have reunited with Stephen Curry—but Durant rebuffed the overtures.
The Warriors ultimately landed Butler, boosting their postseason hopes. The Suns landed no one of note, likely rendering them an afterthought this spring. They did, however, telegraph a willingness to trade Durant—a development that could not have sat well with him. This means that, come summer, Durant will surely be the subject of trade rumors once more—and with it, all the usual psychoanalysis of his desires, his hopes, his dreams, his happiness.
The truth is, in year 18, Durant’s desires are refreshingly basic: “Wanting to be the best player that you can be and maximize your potential every day,” he told The Ringer during his Brooklyn visit. “That’s the most important thing. And I think that’s what’s keeping me going, for sure.”
Not scoring titles, not All-NBA selections, not another MVP, and not even, necessarily, a third championship ring—though of course he’d welcome all of it. But Durant’s trophy case is well stocked. He became the eighth player in NBA history to surpass 30,000 points this week. His legacy is beyond secure. So basketball fulfillment at age 36 looks different than it did at 30, or 25, or 20.
“I mean, winning is the most important thing,” Durant said. “But it’s a lot of stuff that’s out of your control. It’s a team sport. It’s a big business. A lot of stuff that you can’t control, which helps you win championships. Injuries might happen, trades might happen. Teammates might not play up to their level sometimes. … But you can control being the best version that you can be every day to add to the group.”
On Sunday, Durant will join fellow graybeards Curry, 36, and LeBron James, 40, in the starting lineup for Team Shaq in the 2025 All-Star Game. It will be a scene bursting with symbolism and nostalgia and perhaps a little wistfulness for a fading era. The three stars are the defining players of their generation, having claimed eight of 11 NBA championships between 2012 and 2022. All remain elite—and yet their powers are clearly waning, along with any chance to cradle the Larry O’Brien Trophy again.
Superstars in this league bear a unique burden, forever credited with all the hardware they accrue for their teams, and forever blamed for any failures along the way. Durant knows the routine well. He’s lived it, enjoyed it, hated it, and railed against it. Now he just seems over it.
“Of course, championships and accolades and awards are important,” Durant said, “but I didn’t think about that as a kid. I cared about being good and actually just playing ball. Just getting [to the NBA]. And I just want to take that mentality every time I step on the floor: Be the best you can be, have fun, enjoy it. The wins are gonna come if you do that.”
We often superimpose our own values and expectations on the superstars we breathlessly follow. There’s an assumption that, as the old adage goes, “Winning isn’t everything—it’s the only thing.” That the hardware is always the overriding goal. Championship or bust. Otherwise, what’s the point? But the players say there’s meaning to the day-to-day, even if they might never win another title.
“You focus on the development of guys, you focus on staying in the fight mentally,” Curry recently told The Ringer. “Because I know, especially at this age, if you check out or you don’t trick yourself into finding some joy, you could lose it real quick.”
For Curry—who made those remarks weeks before the Butler trade—that joy comes with mentoring young teammates and in continuing his decade-plus partnership with Draymond Green and coach Steve Kerr.
That the Warriors are still taking big swings to maximize what’s left of Curry’s career is meaningful, a show of faith that there’s some magic left, though everyone involved knows another title remains a long shot.
“You got to acknowledge where you’re at, but stay in the fight, force yourself to find joy in something,” Curry said. “And as a competitor, I don’t think anybody is successful if they let go of the rope. And I am trying to pride myself on that, accept that challenge. It’s just keeping small goals at this point. Let’s just go win [the next game] and treat it like a one-game, playoff-type vibe. And just keep doing that over and over again until you run out of games.”
For James, satisfaction now comes with obliterating every NBA record for a player over 40; and joy comes with playing alongside his son Bronny, whom the Lakers drafted in the second round last June.
“It’s probably the greatest thing I’ve ever been a part of,” James said after a recent victory at Madison Square Garden, a game highlighted by the crowd chanting, “We want Bronny,” followed by Bronny entering the game and getting on the scoreboard for just the fourth time this season.
“I missed a lot of Bronny’s points because of my career over the course of his childhood, and AAU games and high school,” James told reporters. “And for me to see all the buckets he’s had as an NBA player with us, to be here with him is super special.”
Later that night—and to the shock of the entire basketball world—the Lakers acquired 25-year-old superstar Luka Doncic in a trade for Anthony Davis. Suddenly, the possibility of another title run with James seems at least plausible. And his final chapter now includes the chance to mentor a worthy successor, a fulfilling endeavor in its own right.
But James, Durant, and Curry all understand the reality of this moment. Aging legends rarely win championships in this league, especially if they’re still their team’s no. 1 option, as Curry and Durant are, and as James had been before the Doncic deal.
Michael Jordan was 35, and still the NBA’s best player, when he won his sixth and final championship in 1998. But Jordan is the exception, not the rule. Tim Duncan won his fifth title with the Spurs at age 38, but as a supporting player. Jason Kidd also won a title at 38, with the Mavericks, but as a sidekick to 32-year-old Dirk Nowitzki. Shaquille O’Neal won his last ring with Miami at 34, costarring with 24-year-old Dwyane Wade. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won his last two titles with the Lakers at age 40 and 41, with Magic Johnson leading the way.
But most stars spend their twilight years on fringe playoff teams, at best.
Kobe Bryant won his fifth title in 2010, at age 31, and never made it past the second round again, spending his final three seasons on sub-.500 teams. Nowitzki played eight more seasons after winning the championship—and never got out of the first round again.
“That’s a tough, tough situation to be in,” Nowitzki told me in 2022. “You’ve done everything that you wanted to do on an individual basis—All-Star Games and accolades, All-NBA teams—but all you want to really do down the stretch is win, win as much as you can, compete at the highest level.”
Durant, Curry, and James—still the faces of the league, still its biggest drivers of ratings and jersey sales—are defying history just by playing at an All-Star level this deep into their careers. Even Curry’s last championship, at age 34 in 2022, was a surprise when it happened, considering the mileage on Curry, Green, and Klay Thompson. James was 35 when he and Davis led the Lakers to the 2020 title.
Chances are, none of them will win another. And Durant, at least, seems to be at peace with it. He could have accepted that trade to the Warriors, and embraced all the awkwardness that came with it, for the chance to win another title. If that’s all he cared about, he surely would have. But his refusal shouldn’t surprise us. Durant has been telling us for years, in his own way, that his basketball values are not binary. That it isn’t championship or bust. That comfort and fit and happiness, however he defines those things, are more important than chasing rings just for the sake of résumé-padding.
“As a young player, you want to build your résumé and get all these awards and get the glory as some of your players that you looked up to,” Durant said back in that January encounter. “Once you get all of that, you realize none of that stuff is really important. It was more so about the work you put in and the discipline, the dedication you got to work building your craft.”
“I don’t speak for LeBron and Steph, but I can feel as though they want to continue to get better at their craft. And that’s what keeps you going. You know, accolades just happened to come along the way. But wanting to be the best player that you can be and maximize your potential every day, that’s the most important thing. And I think that’s what’s keeping me going, for sure.”
But, well, another ring wouldn’t hurt, either.
“It wouldn’t,” Durant said, smiling. “Definitely.”
Logan Murdock contributed reporting to this story.
