Kevin Durant's pursuit of perfection led him back to Texas

HOUSTON -- IT'S LATE on a muggy October night, and Kevin Durant refuses to come to grips with reality while heading for the exit at the Toyota Center on the heels of his Rockets preseason debut, a 140-127 win over the Utah Jazz.

Entering his 19th season, Durant has won MVP, two NBA championships and two Finals MVP awards to go with four Olympic gold medals and 15 trips to the NBA All-Star Game. Yet at this stage of his career, Durant doggedly pursues a goal he'll never achieve.

Perfection.

"What you mean I never will?" Durant asks, half smiling.

Since Durant won his second ring with the Golden State Warriors in 2018, he has had stints with the Brooklyn Nets and Phoenix Suns that came to unceremonious exits. Six seasons later, Durant finds himself in what might be his best -- and final -- chance at winning a third ring.

Fifty days after the Rockets walked off their home floor dejected in the wake of a Game 7 loss to the Warriors in the first round of the 2024-25 playoffs, news broke that Houston and the Suns had agreed to a trade in a deal involving seven teams that would send Durant to the Rockets for Jalen Green, Dillon Brooks, the No. 10 pick in the draft and five second-round picks.

The move instantly transformed Houston from a team on the rise -- it was coming off its first 50-win season since 2018-19 and has 10 players on the roster age 28 or younger -- to a contender with Durant powering the offensive engine. The veteran signed to a two-year, $90 million extension on Sunday that includes a player option for 2027-28.

"Kevin has always been a problem," Rockets coach Ime Udoka told ESPN. "He elevates our whole group."

Durant, for his part, sees Houston as his best chance at capturing a third ring. But more than that, he likes that this staff "lets me be me."

"I won't consistently play perfect games," Durant said. "But my jump shot is pretty solid. My handles are pretty solid. It's just a challenge that I enjoy: perfecting something. Well, you'll never be perfect. But trying to get there in the small amount of time that I've got left in this game, why not?"

General manager Rafael Stone sat in his glass-walled office at the Memorial Hermann Houston Rockets training center overlooking his team's practice and pondered whether the club's new star, who was set to make his Rockets debut the following night, would ever reach his elusive goal.

"You can't," Stone said. "But you should try. It's a really good lesson for how to approach the game for our younger guys. He's very interested in the craft and very uninterested, at this stage, in the things that come along with it.

"There are so many things that come with being a star NBA player. At this stage, the one he's most interested in by orders of magnitude is perfecting the craft. We're pretty committed to keeping the main thing the main thing. So, we want him to be the player on the court that he can be. We're not going to ask of him anything else."

Houston opened the preseason Oct. 6 against the Atlanta Hawks, and Durant watched from the bench in a grey hoodie as the Rockets captured a 122-113 win. An hour and 45 minutes before tipoff that night, Udoka announced Durant would take the night off.

Minutes later, the 37-year-old trotted onto the court in uniform, wearing mismatched socks and white tights and pulled the hood of a black sweatshirt over his head. Running through a near-game-speed warmup, Durant missed his first three shots from the corner before knocking down several in a row. For several minutes, he grunted audibly while swiftly changing direction on crossover dribbles that turned into midrange buckets.

Durant wasn't playing that night, but inactivity wasn't halting an opportunity to ply the trade.

"That's my peaceful place," he said. "Trying to perfect my craft."

UDOKA QUICKLY GATHERED the Rockets in the wake of veteran Fred VanVleet's season-ending torn right ACL in late September and emphasized a point the team expects to prove in 2025-26 with Durant taking a lead role.

The coach played the team a clip from the hip-hop cult classic film "Paid in Full."

The main character in the film, Ace, suffers a gunshot wound to his head during a robbery, leaving him contemplating whether to continue his crew's criminal enterprise. One of Ace's business partners, Rico, wants the group to continue.

Udoka saw a parallel in VanVleet's injury.

"If you've seen the movie 'Paid in Full,' he says, '[People] get shot every day, B. You'll be all right,'" Udoka said. "I showed that clip to the team. I said, 'People get hurt every day. We'll be all right.' We'll figure out a different way to do it. That's the message. You've got to figure it out, and we're capable. That's where our depth and versatility come into play. We can go several different ways: super big lineups, small lineups and everything in between."

Durant figures prominently in all those scenarios as an offensive facilitator in the absence of the club's veteran point guard. Amen Thompson, Reed Sheppard and Alperen Sengun will take turns assuming the role, too.

Having played for five franchises in 19 NBA seasons for several coaches, Durant appreciated Udoka's confidence in the face of difficult circumstances. Several within the organization credit VanVleet, a 2022 All-Star, with playing a foundational role in building Houston's culture under Udoka.

"It just shows how in touch Ime is with sports, music, entertainment, culture; how he can connect with the guys on other things outside of basketball," Durant said. "Those messages in those movies, those metaphors, they can help our team. That's just somebody that cares about his team and is trying to use unique ways to get messages through to the guys."

As a player, Udoka often drew the responsibility of guarding Durant. Head-to-head, Udoka and Durant finished deadlocked at 5-5 in regular-season games. Once Udoka joined Hall of Fame coach Gregg Popovich's Spurs staff in 2012, he found himself devising game plans to stop Durant.

When Durant agreed in 2016 to join the Golden State Warriors, Udoka was part of the San Antonio contingent in the Hamptons recruiting the forward, who took a meeting with the Spurs out of respect for Popovich.

Udoka also coached Durant with Team USA. They'd finally join forces in the NBA during the 2020-21 season while Udoka worked in Brooklyn as an assistant under Steve Nash.

Durant described the move to Texas as "organic."

"We know who he is and we're also not asking him to be something he's not," Udoka said. "We understand the way that he leads is not how everybody may prefer him to. But we understand the importance of his everyday approach, his professionalism, work ethic, and all those things rub off on a young group of guys. They want you to be a certain way, vocal or whatever. He talks more than people think. He's not a rah-rah guy out in front of everything. But some of the people that have the most profound words are the ones who say less and say things at the right time."

Durant's comfort and familiarity extend beyond the ties with Udoka, who enters his third season at the helm in Houston. University of Texas teammate and close friend Dexter Pittman works on the Rockets' staff as an intern, and former Longhorn teammate D.J. Augustin holds a role in the front office.

Durant's close friend Royal Ivey, who also played at Texas and was Durant's teammate on the Thunder, is a Rockets assistant.

"There's a lot of Longhorns in the building I guess," Udoka told ESPN.

Rockets veteran Jeff Green, 39, entered the league in 2007 with Durant as a Seattle SuperSonic, and they also played together in Brooklyn and Oklahoma City. Big man Steven Adams was a Thunder teammate of Durant's for three seasons, and shooting guard Josh Okogie played with the 2013-14 MVP in Phoenix.

Green said Durant hasn't changed.

"It was a new world for both of us back then, and we got to experience that together," Green said. "We were always together, spent a lot of time together in and out of the gym. I always tell people that he's stayed true to himself. He's never tried to be somebody he's not. People get it misunderstood about who he is because how he's portrayed in the media. I think that's a little unfair. But Kevin has always kept to himself, put his head down, and let the basketball do the talking. He's a workaholic. And he's been a close, close friend, a brother of mine since day one."

TWO DAYS AFTER Golden State's Buddy Hield dropped 33 points in Game 7 to eliminate Houston on its home floor in the first round of the playoffs, Udoka and Stone strolled side by side into an empty practice gym at Toyota Center seemingly content to run it back this season with that same team.

Arms folded in a cream sweater sitting to Udoka's left, Stone seemed resolute.

"I will give you an inside betting tip that I think continuity is very, very likely," he said May 6.

Then, all of a sudden, it wasn't because of Phoenix's steadily sinking asking price over the summer for a generational talent in Durant. In a sense, Houston was chasing perfection, too, at the cost of draft picks and a pair of its culture builders in Jalen Green and Brooks.

As the No. 2 seed in the West last season, Houston dripped confidence heading into its opening-round series against the seventh-seeded Warriors. Still, the question lingered internally of whether the Rockets needed to acquire an offensive engine to vault themselves to the next level. The postseason would serve as the ultimate proving ground for Houston's young players.

Jalen Green held his own as the Rockets' leading scorer throughout the regular season, averaging 21 points with Sengun adding 19.1 points, followed by VanVleet and Thompson at 14.1 points apiece. But over the four losses in that first-round series, Green averaged 8 points on 13-of-42 shooting for a Houston team that failed to reach the century mark in three of those contests.

VanVleet and Sengun raised their scoring averages to 20.9 points and 18.7 points, respectively, in that series. But that wasn't enough to carry Houston past a veteran-laden Warriors squad led by Jimmy Butler and Stephen Curry.

Even after the disappointment of the first-round exit, "nobody was trying to move guys," Stone told ESPN, because the organization believed it could still realistically chase titles as the young roster developed.

"If Kevin didn't want to come and wasn't available, we would've been fine coming back with the same team," Udoka said. "We went into the playoffs looking at the big picture, like, 'Let's see what we've got with our young guys.' The plan was to win that series and get more experience. But once we didn't and were disappointed by it, we still took the positives from it and the plan was to come back with that same group."

Durant's availability changed everything.

"Jalen and Dillon, we love those guys," Stone said. "Everybody does. Not a single person on this team felt they needed to be moved out. And you're never trying to give away the 10th pick of the draft because that's still a really good player. We did it because of the opportunity. Kevin's a very unique player. His archetype is unique. He's this high-volume efficient scorer who doesn't have to have the ball in his hands 24-7. In that sense, he's kind of a unicorn. He's also a two-way player. There just aren't a whole lot of Kevin Durants. We'll just have to see how he ultimately fits."

Houston ranked 27th last season in effective field goal percentage (43.8%) on off-the-dribble jumpers, according to GeniusIQ, and 24th in effective field goal percentage on all jumpers. Durant knocked down 50.9% of his off-the-dribble jump shots last season, good for second best in a season since player tracking began in 2013-14. His 49.7% on all jumpers that season ranked best in the NBA for players with a minimum of 50 such attempts, according to Genius IQ.

One of the most dangerous iso players in the league, Durant also led the NBA last season in points per direct isolation among players to execute at least 200 isolations. The Rockets finished last season ranked seventh in isolations per game but 27th in points per direct isolation, according to ESPN Research.

Including the regular season and playoffs, Durant has connected on 82 tying or go-ahead shots in the final minute of the fourth quarter or overtime, according to ESPN Research. That ranks No. 3 since play-by-play data was first tracked (1996-97), trailing LeBron James (111) and Kobe Bryant (101).

"Since I got here, we've taken jumps from 22 to 41 wins, and then 52 last year," Udoka said. "You're playing to win. You're playing to advance in the playoffs and do some things for the first time. Well, the expectation goes way up when you get a player like Kevin here."

DURANT'S QUEST FOR perfection seemingly disintegrated just 27 seconds into his preseason debut in Houston, when he fell to the floor after a 16-footer over Jusuf Nurkic rimmed out. Fifty-six seconds later, Durant squeezed past a screen set by Sengun, only for his 7-footer to clang off the right side of the rim.

Durant missed his first three shots as Utah built a quick 10-point lead.

"It's always a balance every game trying to figure out where I can inject myself into the offense and defense," he said. "I feel like I got some good looks early on, and they rimmed in and out. I just stayed patient and knew if those shots came around again, I'd be more focused and knock them down."

Durant drilled his next seven shots to finish with a team-high 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting with two rebounds, one assist and a steal in 23 minutes. Perfection eventually arrived after an imperfect start.

Five days later in Birmingham, Alabama, Durant snagged two rebounds before even taking his first shot -- a miss -- nearly five minutes into a 130-128 win over the New Orleans Pelicans. He missed his first four attempts before connecting on 4 of 5 in the second quarter for 10 points on the way to finishing with 15 points.

Interestingly, Durant started that game at guard in a gigantic starting lineup that also featured Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr., Sengun and Adams. The last time Durant started at guard in the regular season was Jan. 9, 2009, coincidentally against the Rockets, according to ESPN Research.

Like everybody else, Udoka understands Durant will never perfect the craft of basketball, no matter how hard he tries. But the coach believes teammates will eventually join Durant in those efforts.

That's part of the reason the team traded for Durant.

"No, he won't ever be perfect. But that love for the game is what it's all about," Udoka said. "He just has an old-school mentality when it comes to hooping. You love that about somebody who has accomplished as much as he has, that he's not satisfied. He wants to continue to build and grow. That's what drives him. You can tell every day he comes to the gym he's going 100%, which is not always the case with people. There are certain people that chase the limelight and everything else. He's not that."

During their time together in Brooklyn and with Team USA, Udoka watched players marvel every day at Durant's individual workouts at full game speed after long, grueling full-team practices. Just as Durant would start to transition into his individual workout, "you would see all the guys watching and a lot of them were seeing this for the first time," Udoka told ESPN.

Count third-year veteran Thompson among the latest to witness Durant's rigorous routine.

"The best thing I've learned from KD is just his work ethic," Thompson said during the cooldown portion of a Rockets training camp workout. "Sometimes, I would think I'm going hard. Then, you watch KD. He's damn near 40 and he's going harder. He's going super hard. He's like [at] game speed. I try to incorporate that in my stuff even when I'm not working out with him. I'm just doing game [speed] reps because that's what he does."

Walking down the hall alone at Toyota Center after his Rockets preseason debut, Durant briefly stopped as Udoka tapped the forward on the left shoulder to congratulate him for a job well done.

On this warm night in Houston, hope hangs heavy in the thick air as summer transitions into fall. Having already participated in two ring ceremonies with the Warriors, Durant wants the focus Tuesday to be on the Thunder coming off their first championship, not his return to Oklahoma City.

Durant figures his journey toward perfection finally ends in Houston.

"I can see myself retiring here and being a Rocket until it's over with," Durant said. "And I hate saying this. I don't know what's going to happen on down the line. But as of today, yeah, that's how I feel. I just feel like I'm at a good point in my career where I know what I do is effective on the court. Why not try to keep getting better at it, keep maintaining and keep focusing on new things to get better?"