Thunder fans have had a thousand reasons to love Kevin Durant over the last seven years — well, 16,631 to be exact.
Those are Durant's career points scored — already — as a 25-year-old. It was only a matter of time before the small forward won the NBA MVP Award. After finishing second to LeBron James two years running, the accolade is finally his.
Durant ran away with the vote for the 2014 MVP award with 119 first-place votes; only LeBron had other first-place votes (six).
Durant not only had a streak of 41 straight games of 25 points or more, but he finished the season averaging a career high 32 points, 7.4 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 1.3 steals while shooting 50.3 percent from the field and 39.1 percent from the three point line. He led the NBA in Player Efficiency Rating, Win Shares, minutes played, points, field goals, field goal attempts, free throws, free throw attempts and usage rate.
And now he's first in our hearts after giving the most heart-felt acceptance speech we've seen in years from any athlete:
The whole speech is around 10 minutes long and features multiple tear-jerking moments which you can see here.
Kevin Durant's Top 10 Plays of the Year
Josh Helmuth is the editor of CraveOnline Sports. @JHelmuth
