Kevin Durant Revisits Golden State Warriors Debate

Kevin Durant walked himself straight back into the Golden State debate, then just as quickly tried to walk it back out.

Weeks after saying the 2026 Philadelphia 76ers are more talented on paper than the title-winning Warriors teams he helped turn into a juggernaut, Durant stirred things up again on Boardroom when he was asked a simple question:

Which was the best team — on paper — he ever played on?

Durant didn’t say the Warriors. He didn’t even hesitate toward them. He went straight to Brooklyn.

He started listing names from that star-stacked Nets roster: Kyrie Irving, James Harden, Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge, Paul Millsap, Patty Mills.

“We had the names on that team,” Durant said, pointing to the sheer volume of résumés in that locker room.

Then came the comparison that always seems to find him.

He acknowledged the obvious counter: what about Golden State, the group that actually won? Durant framed it as an accolades argument, not a rings one. At the time, he pointed out, Stephen Curry was already an MVP, but Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were still only one-time All-Stars. Their reputations were still forming, not fully decorated.

By contrast, many of those Nets veterans had already “completed their careers, damn near,” as Durant put it, stacking up All-Star berths and individual honors long before they landed in Brooklyn. Add that to the trio of Durant, Harden and Irving, and on paper, he said, that group edged his Warriors years.

It’s the same logic he used when he recently elevated the hypothetical 2026 76ers above his Golden State teams. That line of thinking didn’t just rile up Warriors fans; it appeared to hit a nerve with Klay Thompson as well, who has never hidden how much pride he takes in that dynasty’s legacy.

But somewhere between the initial clip and the wider reaction, Durant took another look at his own history.

This time, he landed back in the Bay.

“Obviously, the best team I played on was the Warriors,” Durant later admitted. He went even narrower than that, singling out the 2018-19 group. “I want to say the 2019 team was crazy, but we got hurt. With Cousins at the five, that's probably the best team I've been a part of on paper.”

One key detail had slipped his mind the first time: DeMarcus Cousins.

Cousins missed a big chunk of that 2018-19 season, which helps explain why Durant initially pushed that roster to the background. The Warriors’ center rotation that year never felt fully whole, and Durant himself missed the end of that playoff run through injury. In his memory, the group that actually shared the floor most often didn’t match the intimidating list on the depth chart.

“I forgot about Cuz. I didn't play with Cuz a lot that year, because he got hurt,” Durant said. “But when you look at it on paper, it's probably, yeah.” Then he circled back to Brooklyn, calling that Nets team “a close second.”

The trophies still live in Oakland and San Francisco, not Brooklyn. Durant knows that. What still seems to bother him is the gap between what the Nets were supposed to be and what they became.

He admitted he regrets not finishing the job there. Winning a championship in that market, with that collection of talent and that level of expectation, would have created an atmosphere he believes would have been unforgettable.

Instead, that Nets experiment exists as one of the great “what ifs” of his career, while the Warriors’ dominance is etched in stone. Durant can juggle accolades and rosters and hypotheticals all he wants, but even he eventually returned to the same answer everyone else has been shouting back at him:

The best team he ever played on was the one that already changed the league.