Kevin Durant hit a free throw with 15.2 seconds left on Sunday night. Routine. Forgettable. Except it wasn't.
That free throw gave Durant 31,562 career points—two more than Dirk Nowitzki. The man KD spent his entire youth idolizing. The player he hated during Western Conference playoff battles. Now passed in the record books.
"To be up there with Dirk, somebody I looked up to, I idolized, I competed against," Durant said after Houston's 119-110 win over New Orleans. "We had some great battles. He always was supportive of my career and my game."
Then came the line that tells you everything about where Durant's head is at: "And be right under Michael Jordan, it's crazy man. I want to continue to keep stacking, keep climbing up the charts."
The numbers don't lie
Durant now sits sixth on the all-time scoring list. Here's the view from where he stands:
1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Karl Malone
4. Kobe Bryant
5. Michael Jordan — 32,292 points
6. Kevin Durant — 31,562 points
He reached Nowitzki's total in 362 fewer games. Think about that. Three hundred and sixty-two fewer opportunities to score, and he got there anyway.
Durant is averaging 26.1 points this season at age 37. Shooting 51% from the field, 39.3% from three. Through 38 games. All starts. The efficiency hasn't faded. The body hasn't betrayed him. Not yet.
Jordan is 730 points away
At his current pace of roughly 26 points per game, Durant needs about 28 more games to pass Jordan. That puts him on track for sometime around mid-March—assuming health cooperates.
But here's where I pump the brakes. We've seen too many projections crash into the wall of injury, load management, or just random slumps. Durant has missed significant time before. The Achilles tear in 2019. Various soft tissue issues since. Projecting anything in the NBA past two weeks is a fool's game.
Still. The trajectory is clear. Jordan is within reach. Top-five all-time is no longer theoretical—it's probable.
What Nowitzki said
The Rockets played a video message from Nowitzki after the game. Classic Dirk—self-deprecating, genuine, zero pretense.
"Not super happy about him passing me," Nowitzki joked. "No, seriously, to me, he is one of the purest, smoothest scorers the game has ever seen. A 7-footer, basically, which he says he's not."
Then the kicker: "Move up a couple more spots and keep it up."
Durant appreciated it. "For him to take time out of his day to send me a message on passing him on the charts is pretty cool."
The 2011 connection
Durant and Nowitzki have history. Real history.
In 2011, Nowitzki's Mavericks beat Durant's Thunder 4-1 in the Western Conference Finals. Dallas went on to win the championship—Dirk's only ring, the validation of his entire career. Durant was 22. It stung.
The next year? Durant and OKC swept the Mavs out of the playoffs. Revenge. The competitive hatred between them was real.
"There were times going into a series I hated Dirk, you know what I'm saying," Durant admitted. "I'm sure it was vice versa."
But respect emerged. Durant started modeling parts of his game after Nowitzki—the footwork, the midrange artistry, the ability to score from anywhere without relying on athleticism. By the time Durant entered his 30s, he was playing Dirk's game.
What his teammates see
Rockets forward Jabari Smith Jr. put it simply: "He's passing people nightly. He's passing people in every category. He just keeps accomplishing milestones and he just acts like it's nothing."
Smith added something that matters: "He doesn't celebrate it, he wasn't out there trying to hunt and go get it. He's just out there hooping and it just happens organically."
That's the Durant paradox. The moments arrive without him forcing them. On a night the entire arena knew he was chasing 17 points, he finished with 18—on 5-of-18 shooting. Not a pretty stat line. But efficient enough. Patient enough. He got his five makes, hit his free throws, and history happened.
Houston's bigger picture
The Rockets are 24-15, fifth seed in the West. Durant is averaging 28.7 points in January alone—his highest-scoring month of the season—on 50% shooting. The team went 4-5 this month, including some embarrassing losses to sub-.500 opponents. Durant can only do so much.
But individual greatness and team success don't always align on the same night. Sunday was about Durant. The Rockets won 119-110 against a 10-34 Pelicans team nobody expected to threaten them. They didn't. Durant got his moment. The record books updated.
Now comes Jordan. Then Kobe. Then—who knows?
At 37, Kevin Durant is still climbing. And the view keeps getting better.