Who had this on their 2025 beef bingo card?
The Phoenix Suns have shown some signs of life over the last week or so, winners of four out of their last five games to push themselves back over the .500 mark on the season. Kevin Durant has continued to play elite level basketball after recently being named to yet another All-Star team, and the Suns are playing well despite the frequent trade rumors surrounding the organization.
Durant of course was a member of the Team USA squad that won gold in Paris this past summer, and recently, the future Hall of Famer raised eyebrows with a quote about how he sees the debate over whether the world is catching up to the United States in the sport, per the Out The Mud podcast with Zach Randolph and Tony Allen.
“For people to give them credit for just being in a close game with us shows that they ain’t even, can’t compete. We created basketball,” the Phoenix Suns forward said. “We’ve been dominating these dudes for this whole time. And they finally get closer than 20 points and now you’re saying they are catching up, nah.”
One person who isn’t on board with those comments is former Suns forward Shawn Marion, who recently criticized Durant for his remarks.
“Basketball is such a global sport and is growing continuously, the crazy thing is, the last six MVPs [Most Valuable Players] have not been Americans,” he said at the NBA Lunar New Year celebration in Hong Kong, via Mike Chan of the South China Morning Post. “So think about what you’re just saying. I think it’s going to be another foreign MVP this year.
“Kevin Durant is one of the most skilled players, I got so much love and respect for him, but of course, that saying was very cocky, very arrogant.”
Indeed, much has been made in recent years about whether the rest of the world has caught up to the United States in terms of basketball prowess.
Those that say yes will point to the fact that the current three best players in the NBA–Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Luka Doncic–were all born outside of the United States, and the current MVP frontrunner Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is also from Canada.
As with most things, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.