With his fourth Olympic gold medal representing Team USA secured, Kevin Durant now turns his attention to his 17th NBA season. However, this doesn’t seem to be just any other season for Durant who’ll also enter his third season with the Suns as the 35-year-old has new questions on his mind, namely how much more time does he have playing professional basketball?
In an interview with TV One, Durant admitted that retirement has begun to “creep” into his mind in recent years, despite his production on the floor still proving to be incredibly effective.
“As I get older in the league and the league is getting younger, I tend to think about retirement more,” Durant said in an interview with TV One.
“[Retirement] creeps in my mind for sure,” Durant continued. “I honestly don’t know what I’ll do [when I stop playing]. I have a lot of different interests. I definitely want to stay around the game… That’s gonna be a huge, huge transition. I’ve been at this since I was 8. It’s gonna be hopefully 30 years of me doing this where every day was centered around the game of basketball. It hasn’t been no other lifestyle but this.”
As far as his stint in Phoenix, Durant told ESPN back in February that he “loves” playing in the desert, presumably after a rocky time in Brooklyn with the Nets but couldn’t if he’d finish his career with the Suns.
“Right now I would say yes, but that’s just a figure of speech, I can’t know what’s going to happen. I love playing in Phoenix, I love our fans, I love the city. … I realized what our mission is by being in the Valley and I realized how much these people care about their team. I started to understand the history of the Phoenix Suns and I am happy to be a part of it. One day, I would like to receive the franchise’s Ring of Honor.”
Originally drafted No. 2 overall by the then Seattle Super Sonics, Durant along with Al Horford, Mike Conley, and Jeff Green are the only remaining active players from the 2007 Draft Class that saw Greg Oden go first overall. The two-time NBA Champion, MVP in 2014, and 14-time NBA All-Star currently has two years remaining on his contract with Phoenix and is set to become a free agent in 2026.