As the NBA postseason wages on and the end-of-year awards continue to get announced, there isn't much for Phoenix Suns fans to be invested in. The Suns were bounced in the first round, and none of their players were serious contenders for the more prestigious awards like MVP or Defensive Player of the Year.
The final honors to be announced are the All-NBA teams, and thankfully that should feature a couple Suns. Based on what we know of the MVP voting and some revealed All-NBA ballots, Kevin Durant and Devin Booker won't garner first team honors, but have strong cases to land on the other two teams.
The Case for Durant
Durant's first full regular season in The Valley was a great one, even if the cracks of age began to show. Durant registered a triple slash line of 27.1/6.6/5, which is right about in line with his production from the past few years.
He finished sixth in the league in scoring on the strength of a 62 TS%. That efficiency number was actually the lowest it’s been in 12 seasons, but is still an elite mark for a perimeter scorer. It's a testament to how good Durant has been in recent years that it’s considered a down season for him.
The efficiency dip might not solely be due to father time catching up to him though. Durant shouldered the heaviest workload of any Sun this year, playing in 75 games at 37.2 mpg.
Kevin Durant received one vote for MVP, yall can hate on him all you want but he still is in the elite convos ‼️ pic.twitter.com/rXuBe4jPEM
— 𝘚𝘵𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘢☆ (@Stunna999_) May 8, 2024
That durability should only help his All-NBA case. Of the top 10 scorers in the league, only 1 played in more games than Durant this year.
Contributing to Durant’s workload was his status as the Suns’ best defender. Playing the four, he was essentially the Suns primary rim protector next to the vertically challenged Jusuf Nurkić, and averaged 1.2 blocks per game.
There were numerous instances when the Suns went small with Durant at the five, and he excelled in those lineups as well. Overall, Durant held opponents to 3.8 percentage points below their average, which was one of the best marks for a non-big in the league.
Not only should this help him lock down a second-team spot, but he has a legitimate case for an All-Defense team too. That would be a first for Durant, and would cap off an incredible evolution as a rim protector that started when he joined Golden State.