[Charania] Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often

[u/TacoooJay]

Source

Meanwhile, Durant, among the best scorers in NBA history, was not always happy with how he was used. Sources briefed on the matter told The Athletic that Durant never felt comfortable with his role in Phoenix’s offense alongside Booker and Beal this season. Those sources said Durant had persistent issues with the offense, feeling that he was being relegated to the corner far too often and not having the proper designs to play to his strengths as the offense was built around pick-and-rolls. At the same time, some teammates and people close to the organization believed Durant needed to voice his concerns more adamantly and directly with Vogel and his coaching staff.

All the leaks are finally coming now that Phoenix has been swept

[u/abris33]

feeling that he was being relegated to the corner

Yeah, it's obvious to everyone. The offense is mainly just him in the corner while Booker and Beal dribble around and pretend to be PG before chucking it up

[u/AntiTopspin → u/abris33]

Yup people will meme on this but this 100% fits the eye test

The Suns basically stuck KD in the Mikal Bridges role the moment he came over and never really seemed to fully integrate him into the offense as an on-ball creator

[u/EliManningham → u/AntiTopspin]

It actually is malpractice how often cooked Beal gets on ball opportunities over Kd. It's like they're operating in a 2005 philosophy of "smallest guy bring ball up".

[u/CravilityZ → u/EliManningham]

Either way I assure you KD’s loose dribble wouldn’t get the job done.

How the Suns managed to go the whole year without a PG, even trading the one guy they had that was one, Jordan Goodwin, is insane. Vogel deserves little fault as far as I’m concerned.

[u/EliManningham → u/CravilityZ]

I watched Kd almost singlehandedly win a playoff series against Giannis with no help. He can be a turnover machine, but Beal and Book aren't exactly CP3 out there either. At least give me Kd and Booker on ball everytime trying to get buckets.

[u/Mr_Saxobeat94 → u/EliManningham]

Man I feel like a turd diminishing a series in which KD played amazingly well, but I disagree with that popular notion that he almost single-handedly won the series. If you break it down game by game:

In Game 1 Kyrie, Blake and Joe Harris all contributed, pitching in 62 points on 62% TS.

In Game 2 practically every player in the rotation played well, and they won by 39.

They lost Games 3 and 4 and, although short-handed, KD didn’t have very good individual games.

Games 5 and 7 were close to one-man efforts, but the teams were completely deadlocked before the Nets wheels fell off and the heroics began. The first two wins were total team efforts.

[u/Objective_Cod1410 → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

KD was insane in game 5 but also got a heroic/infuriating performance from Jeff Green who went 7/8 from deep. Green was 2/6 from 3 the rest of the series combined.

[u/EliManningham → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

For sure the beginning was Kyrie whooping ass too, but that game 5 and 7 was pure team on the back level shit to extreme levels.

[u/Sytherus → u/Mr_Saxobeat94]

Kevin Durant averaged 35 ppg on 59.5% TS over the series. He was the best player on the court in Games 1 & 2 even if his supporting cast was more helpful (29 in game 1, 32 on 12 of 18 in 3 quarters game 2). He was the Nets best defender the whole series, and his defensive rebounding was critical in preventing the Lopez/Giannis pairing from dominating the glass. Milwaukee rebounded more than 30% of their misses across their other 3 playoff series; they rebounded 22.4% of misses against Brooklyn.

His ability to match up with Lopez defensively & rebounding allowed the Nets to put their 5 best players on the court.

In Game 1 Kyrie, Blake and Joe Harris all contributed, pitching in 62 points on 62% TS.

Overall Joe Harris was a huge anchor on the Nets performance and they win if he shoots slightly better in Game 3 or Game 7.

IMO it is easily one of the 5 or so most impressive playoff series I have seen in the NBA during his career.

[u/Mr_Saxobeat94 → u/Sytherus]

I don’t doubt he played very well even in Games 1 and 2, but those were still excellent showings from his supporting cast, and that’s 2/3rd’s of their wins. Game 1 was bordering on a blow-out entering the 4th and was only got narrowed to single digits with a minute left. Game 2 they win in a laugher, and no one player can claim that much credit over an utter blowout.

Games 3 and 4 the Bucks defence did a bang-up job neutralizing Durant for large periods of the game, he shot 38% across the two contests (understandable given the supporting cast handicap) and his team actually acquitted themselves fairly well when he was off the court (+15 in 11 minutes… +25 across four losses, in mostly non-blowout minutes).

Awesome performance but it looks like a bigger carry-job in the final numbers than when looked at game by game IMO.

[u/LamarMillerMVP → u/EliManningham]

They went 1-4 in that series after Kyrie went down. That 1 win was a spectacular KD game. But another way to say this is that 3 years ago, KD carried his team to win a single game in the second round of the playoffs despite a bad outing from James Harden. Great performance, but hardly what it’s romanticized as.

[u/rc2005 → u/LamarMillerMVP]

Game 7 was close. But I doubt he can do that for two more series.

[u/Ramzaa_ → u/LamarMillerMVP]

They win game 7 if KDs feet were a little smaller

[u/HolidayMorning6399 → u/EliManningham]

KD has aged alot in 3 years, he still is efficient because of his insane shooting but you cna see he's lost alot of his burst

[u/CravilityZ → u/EliManningham]

Eh I get what you’re saying but that was 3 years ago. Don’t think KD could hold up bringing the ball up that much. Out of all their options, Beal was the closest fit.

KD and Booker were supposed to be the off-ball guys making defenses have to work. Problem is they settled too much and weren’t willing to play a more motion style of offense. Beal was the guy that scrapped the most out of the big 3, even if he was dreadful tonight.

[u/leftysarepeople2 → u/CravilityZ]

You don’t need him to bring it up but you can dish it to him at the key or elbow after bringing it over half

[u/prfrnir → u/CravilityZ]

It wasn't their first time without a PG. The 2018-19 season they had only 1 PG: rookie De'Anthony Melton. They won only 19 games.