Kevin Durant Revisits Warriors Best Team Debate — A Key Asterisk
Kevin Durant has spent the summer juggling legacies like they're closeouts on the perimeter. First it was the 2026 Philadelphia 76ers. Then the Brooklyn Nets. Now, after a bit of public blowback and some personal reflection, he’s back where a lot of people thought he’d never really left: calling a Golden State Warriors team the best he’s ever played on.
Sort of.
In a recent appearance on Boardroom, Durant was asked a simple question with a not-so-simple answer: which was the best team — on paper — he’s ever played for?
His first instinct? Not Stephen Curry. Not Klay Thompson. Not Draymond Green. Not even those 73–9 Warriors he helped turn into a juggernaut. He went straight to Brooklyn.
Durant rattled off the names like a roll call of star power: Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap, Patty Mills.
“We had the names on that team,” he said, pointing to the sheer volume of talent and accolades that Nets group carried into the building every night.
The logic was familiar. It’s the same argument he recently used when he said the 2026 Philadelphia 76ers were more talented — on paper — than the championship Warriors teams he helped lead. Not better historically, not more accomplished, just heavier on résumés and awards.
This time, he took direct aim at how those Warriors cores were viewed at the time they came together.
“I know people are going to say, ‘the Warriors, you had Steph and Klay,’” Durant said. “But I’m like, when you look at that team, though. At the time, Steph was an MVP but Klay and Draymond didn’t get the accolades at that time. They were like one-time All-Stars.”
That was the crux of it. Brooklyn’s veterans had already done their individual damage around the league. Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were still in the process of stacking All-Star nods and All-NBA mentions when Durant arrived in the Bay.
“These [Nets players] I’m talking about already completed their careers, damn near, and got all of their accolades on top of me, James and Kyrie,” Durant continued. “So when you’re just putting accolades on the table, I would say that team.”
The nuance didn’t stop the reaction. His framing clearly struck a nerve, especially with Warriors fans already sensitive after his comparison to the 2026 Sixers. It didn’t help that Klay Thompson appeared less than thrilled with Durant’s earlier comments about Golden State’s place in his personal hierarchy.
But then came the twist.
After sitting with his own answer, Durant circled back and essentially corrected himself — without abandoning the “on paper” lens that started this whole debate.
“Obviously, the best team I played on was the Warriors,” he admitted. “I want to say the 2019 team was crazy, but we got hurt. With Cousins at the five, that’s probably the best team I’ve been a part of on paper.”
The key name he’d left out? DeMarcus Cousins.
Durant said that Warriors group didn’t initially come to mind because he flat-out forgot Cousins was on that 2018–19 roster. Cousins missed significant time that season recovering from an Achilles injury and later dealing with a quad tear in the playoffs, which meant Durant never truly experienced the full version of that lineup for long stretches.
“I forgot about Cuz. I didn’t play with Cuz a lot that year, because he got hurt,” Durant said. “But when you look at it on paper, it’s probably, yeah.”
That 2019 Warriors team — Curry, Thompson, Durant, Green, Cousins — existed more as a terrifying idea than a sustained reality. Injuries shredded what might have been remembered as one of the most talent-heavy starting fives ever assembled. Durant’s own postseason injury, Thompson’s torn ACL in the Finals, Cousins’ health issues: the “on paper” monster never became the full-strength version fans had imagined.
Even with that recalibration, Durant wasn’t ready to let go of Brooklyn entirely.
“That Brooklyn team is a close second,” he added, keeping the Nets firmly in the conversation for pure star power and name recognition, even if they never came close to matching Golden State’s hardware.
Durant also acknowledged the lingering sting from that Nets chapter. For all the hype around the trio of Durant, Irving and Harden, the project collapsed under injuries, absences and off-court drama. The basketball world never got the definitive answer on what that group could have been.
He knows exactly what was lost.
Durant admitted he regrets not being able to win a championship in Brooklyn, saying he understood how electric that atmosphere would have been had the Nets actually broken through.
In Oakland, the parades already happened. In Brooklyn, the banners never came. On paper, though? Durant is still sorting through which superteam sits at the top of his personal list — and how different the conversation might sound if those rosters had ever stayed whole long enough to prove it.
