Is Former Thunder Kevin Durant Primed for Title Run in H-Town?

In early July, former Thunder superstar and MVP Kevin Durant discussed his time with Oklahoma City while on the Mind the Game podcast, hosted by LeBron James and Steve Nash—primarily noting how the organization wasn't ready top to bottom for the arrival of a young team with premier talent.

Durant would go on to state how he and his teammates, individually, all sped up the timeline for the organization, putting an organization who re-homed to Oklahoma City just four years prior in a unique spot. According to Durant, that didn't lend itself very well for three MVP talents at the time—himself, Russell Westbrook and James Harden.

"I think we exceeded expectations with that team," Durant said. "And when you reach the Finals and you go through a run like that so quick, I don't think a GM or an owner was ready for that."

In a stacked Western Conference at the time, the team certainly did exceed expectations. It was unheard of, and Durant, Westbrook and Harden were at the very forefront of it. And what would be a controversial decision in Harden's ultimate departure, letting him go at the time may have made sense, but in hindsight, Presti and co. should have forked the money over.

Regardless, this young team would go on to break into the Western Conference Finals multiple times but to no avail, and those mishaps weren't necessarily at the hands of the Thunder front office.

"We exceeded the timeline, so they wasn't ready for that... That's just my theory. I don't know exactly what Sam [Presti] was thinking or the owner, but my theory is I don't think they were ready exactly for us to be contenders every year."

Harden's departure, which would coincidentally be to Durant's new team for the upcoming year, would be to Houston, and Durant would reveal that it certainly had a big toll on how Oklahoma City would be able to "fine tune" to progress and improve.

He wasn't certain as to how the Thunder front office expected them to continue its upward trajectory as one of its key pieces was just shipped off to the Rockets. And even years after his departure, following a couple years of bad injury luck, Oklahoma City made it back to a prime stage in the conference finals versus the Golden State Warriors—where the Thunder would lose off a 3-1 Warriors comeback, and Durant would join Golden State the following season.

Durant assuredly learned a lot from his time at Oklahoma City. And now, a two-time NBA champion, he could bring that experience and leadership to Houston in a very positive light.

With teammates like Alperen Sengun, Amen Thompson, Jabari Smith Jr. Reed Sheppard and more, Durant could be the talented veteran to help push them beyond the first round of the postseason where its season ended a year ago.