Kevin Durant Isn’t Coming Up Short, We Are.

It’s time for everyone to cut the crap. We are officially at the point where no one knows what a superstar is anymore. Maybe we can blame Twitter, or maybe we can blame…no, we can blame Twitter.

With 140 characters being able to tell a story by simply pressing “SEND”, it’s apparent that Kevin Durant isn’t a superstar and that we have all been fooled. Maybe he’s not scoring enough (you stupid 31.8 ppg), maybe he isn’t rebounding enough (silly him for leading his team in rebounding), or maybe he just isn’t passing enough (allow me to gloss over his 6.3 assists this postseason).

Apparently, the latest narrative on Twitter has been that Durant could stand to do more to help the Thunder play without Russell Westbrook. Thank goodness no one that I follow and disagree with has a front office job because, if they did, Durant would have been traded by now (yes, I know, the trade deadline has come and gone). But seriously, it’s hard to overstate how much the Thunder miss their All-NBA point guard, so it’s only natural that everyone overlooks that fact while minimizing what Durant has done in his absence.

These days, nothing comes and goes quicker than the crowning and inevitable discrediting of a “superstar”. James Harden’s stint as a superstar lasted up until the playoffs, where he proved to be mortal, silly him. Steph Curry and his smooth 3-point shooting stroke will inevitably suffer the same fate. That’s all fine and dandy, seeing as I don’t agree that they’re superstars as of yet. But if Kevin Durant is the latest guy to come under fire, something is clearly wrong with us.

If sports on Twitter has done anything, it has exposed a lot of people for developing this contrived obsession with winning and how it determines who is elite.

Though winning matters a lot, it judges only so much. The other day when Kevin Durant was quoted as saying he could “do more”, he gave people all the ammunition necessary to harp on his efforts, even when he was simply being politically correct. Durant, as a leader and competitor, will always say that he can do more. He realizes that he has a lot of slack to pick up if he’s going to return to the NBA Finals this postseason; but it would be incredibly lazy to discredit anything he does because he’s down 3-1 in the second round.

Replacing a key piece on a title contender isn’t easy. Awkwardly enough, Oklahoma City starting center Kendrick Perkins, for all his on-court deficiencies, is the perfect example of that. In 2010, Perkins, then starting for the Celtics, missed Game 7 of the NBA Finals; many felt that him being out cost the Celtics their second title in three years.

So, if we’re giving the Celtics a slight pass for missing Perkins, how hard do you think it is to replace a guy like Westbrook? His 23.4 points, 7.4 assists and 5.2 rebounds per game aren’t going to fall out of the sky, but Durant has done a damn good job of making sure that they come close. He’s had to shoulder the scoring load, rebound even more, pass more effectively, and increase his already-ridiculous efficiency. What more can he really do? What more would anyone do?

There is so much irony in sports today. For years, people preached to Kobe Bryant that he couldn’t “do it alone”, all while giving LeBron James hell for realizing that and not wasting his prime years with teammates we have to Google to this very day. Durant can’t do it alone, no star worth mentioning ever has, and no one ever worth remembering ever will.

If the Thunder lose this series, there could very well be a long line of people waiting to see why there’s a love affair with Durant, which would prove that they don’t watch enough basketball.

Everyone is so obsessed with who won or lost that there’s no energy left to give attention to context. In Durant’s case, he’s done more for the Thunder, even in their 3-1 hole, than anyone else could do. No game in this series has been decided by more than six points, and that certainly isn’t because Durant’s supporting cast has lit the world on fire.

How quickly we forget the annual pity party we threw for Kevin Garnett as he wasted away in Minnesota. Year after year, Garnett would go home in the first round of the NBA Playoffs and we had no problem crowning him as one of the premiere players in the NBA. Tracy McGrady, one of the best scorers in recent memory, suffered the same yearly result.

The same reason we gloss over Garnett and McGrady struggling in the postseason is the same reason we glossed over Jordan doing the same: they showed up when it mattered most.

Slowly, the standard of being a superstar has been to overcompensate to irrational lengths. Durant’s efforts have been superhuman, even when the Thunder are coming on the wrong side of the scoreboard. The only people looking to discredit what has done are the ones who ready box scores quicker than read into the circumstances he’s playing under. Westbrook never missed an NBA game before his injury in Game 3 of the first round, and now the Thunder have to adapt on the fly while defending their Western Conference crown.

In that time, Durant has average 33.1 points, 10.1 boards and 6.3 assists. If the Thunder lose against the Grizzlies, it won’t be because of Durant. Every year, a new narrative develops to suggest that a star could stand to do more while we make very little of what his teammates could stand to do. As talented as Durant is, the efforts of Westbrook are missed when you’re talking about making the game easier. Durant is struggling to get open looks because he has no teammates who present a viable threat on offense unless he creates something.

Durant established himself as the best scorer in the NBA while he makes yearly improvements in other areas. With Westbrook out, the Thunder’s success is dependent on the nightly efforts of one guy. Using this postseason as a measuring stick, especially given the circumstances, is an irresponsible practice. The term “superstar” has become watered down into a flavor of the month award, a “What Have You Done For Me Lately?” technique that is dependent on last night’s results.

Fans have become so results-oriented that the process has become something to gloss over, all because of the almighty W. Guys like Carmelo Anthony aren’t second-guessed as superstars just because of the lack of playoff success on his resume, it’s because he excels at only one thing (at an inefficient rate, no less). Otherwise, Chris Paul wouldn’t be deemed a top 3 player in the NBA, seeing as he’s never made it past the second round of the playoffs. The steps to greatness have become an afterthought because tweeting gives casual fans the platform to criticize each of those steps. That’s something that Durant is learning, even without the help of one of the NBA’s best talents.

Every year, there is a new scapegoat to focus on, even when there are a million reasons to look elsewhere; this year, that’s Durant. We’ll never get tired of this same dance, no matter how impatient and irrational it allows us to look.

If nitpicking Durant while he shoulders this load has taught us anything, it’s that we haven’t learned a single thing from LeBron James before him. And, well, that’s not Durant’s fault at all.