Truth be told, Golden State’s former coach wasn’t sure the Warriors needed Kevin Durant.
The Warriors were already small-ball sensations, capable of piling up the points with their daring drives and sizzling shooting. So rather than add another scorer, Don Nelson figured Golden State might be better off getting a dominant man in the middle to shore up the defense in the 2007 NBA draft.
Nelson thought the Warriors needed Greg Oden.
That was 10 years ago, leading up to the heavily hyped draft in which the Oden-Durant debate raged throughout basketball. And now, as Durant leads the league’s most potent team into the NBA Finals while Oden is long gone from the NBA spotlight, it’s easy to forget that a lot of people agreed with Nelson.