Three years after Kevin Durant left them in free agency, the Warriors are back in the Finals and the Nets couldn’t win a playoff game. It’s a narrow view of a complicated legacy question but, as Charles Barkley reiterated Wednesday, it can stand as an argument against Durant’s placement on the NBA’s Mount Rushmore. “You know it has an effect on his legacy,” said Barkley, who was promoting his upcoming appearance at the American City Golf Championship at Tahoe. “If you go back and look, and I talked about it on the [TNT] show, LeBron has said it before — he said, ‘I had to win a championship without Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.’ And Kobe’s said it before, Rest in Peace, ‘I’ve got to win a championship without Shaq.’ “So Kevin and Kyrie [Irving], before we elevate them among the old guys, they’re not going to get the credit they deserve until they win a championship by themselves and be The Guy.”

Source: Forbes June 08, 2022 17:23 UTC