# Is Kevin Durant the Greatest Scorer Ever? 16 Lists, Six Teams
> Kevin Durant starts his 19th season fifth on the NBA scoring list. Sixteen rankings follow him through six franchises, four Olympics and one Achilles.
*By YPB Team · Published October 15, 2026 · https://youpick.best/articles/kevin-durant-ranked-many-ways*
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Kevin Durant with Oklahoma City in 2010, three seasons into a career that has since passed through six franchises. Photo: J.smith, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Kevin Durant opens his 19th NBA season with the Houston Rockets when the 2026-27 schedule tips off on Tuesday, 20 October.1 In March he hit a corner three against Miami and moved past Michael Jordan into fifth place on the league's all-time scoring list.2
Search for him and Google finishes the sentence with "the greatest scorer". The career behind that phrase is spread across Seattle, Oklahoma City, Golden State, Brooklyn, Phoenix and Houston, plus four Olympic tournaments and one torn Achilles. Each of the 16 rankings below holds one piece of it.
> Durant scores his way onto every list, yet no franchise kept him longer than nine seasons, and each of his six team lists remembers a different player.
## Durant vs Michael Jordan: the 32 greatest NBA players
The broadest list here asks for the 32 best players in league history. Durant belongs on it by any standard measure: the 2014 MVP award, 16 All-Star selections and 12 All-NBA teams.3
Michael Jordan is the name every all-time list is built around, with six titles and six Finals MVP awards in six trips to the Finals.
Durant's case against the very top of this field rests on scoring and longevity. His critics point out that both of his championships came in Golden State, on a team that had already won 73 games before he arrived.
Durant against Jordan, the player he passed on the scoring list this year. Play it →
## Durant vs Kobe Bryant: chasing fourth on the scoring list
This is the ranking the Google phrase points to: the greatest scorers in NBA history. Durant entered the 2026-27 season with 32,597 regular-season points, a career average of 27.1 a game and four scoring titles.3
Kobe Bryant is the next name above him on the all-time list, at 33,643. Bryant also owns the 81-point game against Toronto in 2006, the second-highest total anyone has scored in one night.
Above both of them sit Karl Malone, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and LeBron James, three players who scored for twenty seasons or close to it. Wilt Chamberlain belongs here for a different reason: a 50.4-point average across the whole 1961-62 season.
Durant's claim is efficiency at volume. He has scored over 27 a game for nearly two decades while shooting about 50 percent from the field, a combination few players on this list matched for so long.
Bryant against Durant: the 81-point night against four scoring titles. Play it →
## Larry Bird, LeBron James and Durant: the best small forwards
The small forward ranking narrows the field to one position, and the position is crowded at the top. LeBron James and Larry Bird are the two names most all-time lists put first.
Bird won three straight MVP awards from 1984 to 1986 and three titles with Boston. James has four MVPs and four championships with three franchises.
Durant is the third name in most versions of this conversation. Listed at 6-foot-11, he plays the position with a center's reach, and he won his MVP as a small forward in 2014.
Julius Erving, Scottie Pippen and Kawhi Leonard each have a case built on something Durant lacks: Erving's ABA titles, Pippen's six rings, Leonard's two Finals MVPs with two clubs.
Durant and Bird, two forwards who shot like guards. Play it →
## Reggie Miller and the specialists: Durant among three-point shooters
The three-point ranking is a list of specialists, and Durant is one of the few players on it who was never paid mainly to shoot from outside.
His numbers still hold up: 2,377 made threes at 39.2 percent across his regular-season career.3
Stephen Curry and Ray Allen own the volume records. Reggie Miller, Kyle Korver and Klay Thompson built whole careers on the shot. Next to them, Durant reads as a scorer who happens to shoot well from distance.
Miller against Durant: a specialist and a scorer with range. Play it →
## Finals MVP in 2017 and 2018: Durant vs Magic Johnson
Durant won the Finals MVP award twice, in 2017 and 2018, both times with Golden State and both times against LeBron James's Cleveland.3
Magic Johnson won his first as a 20-year-old rookie in 1980, starting at center in the deciding Game 6 against Philadelphia. He collected three in all with the Showtime Lakers.
Michael Jordan's six sit at the top of any count. The harder comparison for Durant is Kawhi Leonard, who also has two Finals MVPs and won them with two different franchises.
Durant against Magic Johnson, the rookie who played center in a clinching game. Play it →
## Team USA: four Olympic golds and Lisa Leslie's record
This is the list where Durant has the strongest record of anyone in it. He won gold in London 2012, Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024, the first man to win four Olympic titles in basketball.4
In Paris he also passed Lisa Leslie's 488 points to become the top scorer in US Olympic history, men or women.5
Carmelo Anthony held the men's record of three golds before Durant, and the 1992 Dream Team of Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird still defines the category for most fans. Durant's counter is simple: he kept coming back after the stars of his own generation stopped.
Anthony against Durant: three golds against four. Play it →
## Seattle SuperSonics: one season before the move
The Seattle SuperSonics drafted Durant second overall in 2007, one pick after Greg Oden. He was named the 2008 Rookie of the Year, and that summer the franchise left for Oklahoma City.
One season is a thin claim on a list led by Gary Payton, Shawn Kemp and Jack Sikma. Durant is on it as the last star to play for the franchise in Seattle.
Durant's one Seattle season against Payton's thirteen. Play it →
## Durant vs Russell Westbrook: the Oklahoma City years
The Thunder list covers Durant's longest stay anywhere: eight seasons in Oklahoma City after the move from Seattle. He won his MVP there in 2014 and led the team to the 2012 Finals, where it lost to Miami in five games.
Russell Westbrook played alongside him for all eight of those seasons and stayed after he left. Westbrook won the 2017 MVP while averaging a triple-double, the first player to do it since Oscar Robertson.
The end is what complicates Durant's place here. In the 2016 Western Conference finals the Thunder led Golden State three games to one and lost the series. That July Durant signed with the Warriors.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander has since given Oklahoma City its own MVP and its first championship, and he did it without either of them.
Westbrook against Durant, eight seasons as teammates. Play it →
## Stephen Curry vs Durant: two titles at Golden State
The Warriors ranking holds the three seasons that produced both of Durant's championships and both of his Finals MVPs, in 2017 and 2018.
The franchise already belonged to Stephen Curry. Curry won back-to-back MVPs in 2015 and 2016 and a title in 2015 before Durant arrived, and he won a fourth ring in 2022 after Durant had left.
Wilt Chamberlain, Rick Barry and Klay Thompson complete the case that Durant was a brilliant guest rather than a founder. Two titles in three seasons is a rare return in any franchise's history, and that is the strongest thing his supporters can say for him here.
Durant and Curry, on the same side for three seasons. Play it →
## Brooklyn Nets: Durant, Kyrie Irving and a foot on the line
Durant signed with Brooklyn in 2019 while recovering from a torn Achilles, and he missed the whole 2019-20 season.3 Kyrie Irving signed the same summer, and James Harden arrived in a trade in January 2021.
The three rarely shared the floor. The closest Brooklyn came was Game 7 of the 2021 conference semifinals against Milwaukee, when Durant's late jumper was a two because his toe touched the three-point line. The Bucks won in overtime and went on to the title.
A year later Boston swept the Nets in the first round, and Durant was traded to Phoenix in February 2023.
The Nets list still makes a case for him as the most talented player the franchise has employed. Jason Kidd, who took New Jersey to two Finals, and Julius Erving, who won two ABA titles with the Nets, have the results he lacks.
Irving against Durant, the two signings of the 2019 summer. Play it →
## Steve Nash, Charles Barkley and Durant's Phoenix Suns spell
Phoenix traded for Durant at the February 2023 deadline. The Suns won one playoff series with him that spring, beat the Clippers, then lost to Denver.
The next two seasons went worse: a first-round sweep by Minnesota in 2024 and a 36-46 record in 2025 that missed the playoffs entirely.6
Steve Nash won two MVPs in Phoenix and Charles Barkley won one. On a list built around them, two and a half seasons is a footnote.
Durant against Nash, the Suns' two-time MVP. Play it →
## Hakeem Olajuwon's Houston Rockets: Durant's newest team
Houston traded Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick in the 2025 draft and five second-round picks to Phoenix for Durant in June 2025.6
His first season there produced the Jordan milestone and a first-round exit against the Lakers.
The Rockets list belongs to Hakeem Olajuwon, who won titles in 1994 and 1995, with James Harden, Moses Malone and Yao Ming behind him. Durant's place on it depends on what he does in the seasons he has left.
Olajuwon against Durant: two titles against one season. Play it →
## Texas Longhorns, 2007: the first freshman to win the Wooden Award
Durant played one college season, at Texas in 2006-07. He won the John R. Wooden Award that April, the first freshman to receive it.7
The ranking covers the best college players of the 2000s, and the competition is four-year stars: J.J. Redick at Duke and Tyler Hansbrough at North Carolina, both national players of the year. Durant's case is one season better than anyone else's.
Durant's single season at Texas against Redick's four at Duke. Play it →
## LeBron James and Durant: the best players after turning 35
This list asks who played best late in a career. Durant turned 37 in September 2025 and averaged 26.0 points for Houston that season, shooting 52 percent from the field and 41.3 percent from three.3
LeBron James is the standard here, still an All-NBA player past 40. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar won a Finals MVP at 38, and Karl Malone and John Stockton reached the Finals together in their mid-thirties.
Durant came back from a ruptured Achilles at 32. That his scoring held into his late thirties is the strongest single fact in his favor on this list.
James against Durant, two scorers who did not slow down. Play it →
## Golden State, 2016: the free-agent signing that made Durant a villain
The free-agent ranking includes Durant twice: the 2016 move to Golden State and the 2019 move to Brooklyn. The first is the one people still argue about.
The Warriors had just won 73 regular-season games, a league record, and had beaten Durant's Thunder from 3-1 down. Joining them handed Golden State a fourth All-Star and, in his first two seasons there, two titles.
Shaquille O'Neal's 1996 move to the Lakers produced three straight championships. LeBron James's 2010 move to Miami produced two titles and a television special he later said he would handle differently.
Durant's signing sits with James's: decisive on the court and costly to his reputation.
Durant to Golden State against O'Neal to Los Angeles: two signings, two dynasties. Play it →
## Durant's Achilles vs Derrick Rose's knee: the biggest NBA what-if
Durant ruptured his right Achilles tendon on 10 June 2019 in Game 5 of the Finals in Toronto.8 He had missed a month with a calf injury and returned for that game. Golden State won it by one point and lost the series in the next game.
The what-if runs in two directions. A healthy Durant might have given the Warriors a third straight title, and he might have stayed in Golden State instead of signing with Brooklyn that summer.
Derrick Rose's torn ACL in the 2012 playoffs, a year after he became the youngest MVP in league history, is the other modern injury on this list. Portland drafting Sam Bowie ahead of Jordan in 1984 is the oldest.
Rose's knee against Durant's Achilles, two injuries that rerouted a franchise. Play it →
## Six jerseys, one unfinished case
Durant's scoring settles his place on the broad lists, and his travels unsettle the team ones. Seattle had him for one season, Oklahoma City for eight, Golden State for three, and every franchise list weighs those years differently. Every list here is settled by head-to-head picks, and [how the scores are worked out](/articles/how-rankings-are-scored) explains the arithmetic.
He signed a two-year extension with Houston in October 2025, reported at $90 million, with the second year at his option.9 The Rockets list is the one he can still change.
If a player you follow has worn several jerseys, build a ranking from those chapters and let other fans choose between them.
## More rankings, more angles
- [Steph Curry: Greatest Shooter of All Time? 4,000 Threes, 16 Lists](/articles/stephen-curry-ranked-many-ways) — Durant's Golden State teammate, ranked on his own
- [Kobe Bryant: Greatest Laker of All Time? 81 Points, 14 Lists](/articles/kobe-bryant-ranked-many-ways) — the scorer one place ahead of Durant
- [LeBron James vs Michael Jordan: Who Is the GOAT? 16 Lists](/articles/lebron-james-vs-michael-jordan-ranked) — the two names above everyone on these lists
Sources
Fox Sports — 2026-27 NBA season start date, Tuesday 20 October 2026: foxsports.com (checked 2026-10-15)
theScore — Durant passes Michael Jordan for fifth on the all-time scoring list in a 123-122 win over Miami: thescore.com (checked 2026-10-15)
Basketball-Reference — Kevin Durant career statistics and awards (MVP, Finals MVPs, All-Star and All-NBA selections, scoring titles, career points and three-pointers, 2019-20 absence, 2025-26 season): basketball-reference.com (checked 2026-10-15)
Andscape — Durant becomes the first four-time Olympic gold medalist in men's basketball: andscape.com (checked 2026-10-15)
NBA.com — Durant passes Lisa Leslie as the US career Olympic scoring leader: nba.com (checked 2026-10-15)
Sports Illustrated — Rockets acquire Durant from Phoenix for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick and five second-round picks; Phoenix's 36-46 season: si.com (checked 2026-10-15)
Associated Press via KUsports.com — Durant becomes the first freshman to win the Wooden Award: kusports.com (checked 2026-10-15)
ESPN — Durant ruptured his Achilles in Game 5 of the 2019 Finals against Toronto: espn.co.uk (checked 2026-10-15)
Boston Globe (AP) — Durant's two-year extension with Houston, second year at his option: bostonglobe.com (checked 2026-10-15)
