This week the NBA Board of Governors voted to begin the process to expand the NBA to 32 teams. Local media has been all over this story because it will almost certainly result in Seattle being awarded one of the two new franchises. One angle I haven’t seen covered though is the possibility that Kevin Durant might still be playing in the NBA when the new Seattle SuperSonics debut for the 2028‒29 season.
Seattle’s first NBA season was in 1967‒68. The team soon developed a loyal following and rewarded the Seattle region with an NBA championship in 1979. The Sonics were sold to Clay Bennett, an Oklahoma City businessman, in 2006. A couple of years later the team left town for Oklahoma City and became the Thunder. As part of the compensation for the loss of its team, Seattle retained the SuperSonics branding rights.
Kevin Durant was a young rookie for the 2007‒08 Sonics, the team’s final season in Seattle. Even then, it was obvious that Durant was going to be an NBA star as he averaged 20 points per game and won Rookie of the Year honors. In just one year, he became one of the most popular Sonics players.
Calling Durant just an NBA star understates his accomplishments. He is a true superstar whose career highlights include four league scoring titles, two NBA championships, one league MVP award, and two NBA finals MVP awards. Durant, now in his 18th season—with one season missed due to injury—recently surpassed Michael Jordan’s career points total and moved into fifth place among the NBA’s all-time leading scorers. He’s been an NBA all star 16 times.
Durant’s long successful NBA career is still going strong.
So, is the title of this post plausible? Could Kevin Durant possibly play a road game here during the season when Seattle returns to the NBA, some 20 years after the old Sonics departed? Obviously, he would need to be on an NBA roster for that to happen.
He was born in September 1988 and will be 40 years old at the beginning of the 2028–29 season. That’s old for an NBA player but not unprecedented. Certainly, at age 37 this year, he’s still an elite and durable player. He’s averaging 26 points per game for the Houston Rockets and has only missed one game due to injury. His contract with Houston, which includes a player option, ends after the 2027‒28 season.
Many analysts have him retiring then so there wouldn’t be a final appearance in Seattle (unless he’s here as a guest—the next best thing). But with a player like Durant, the choice of when he retires is mostly up to him.
That’s not to say a Kevin Durant return would approach the reverence the region would feel if Lenny Wilkens could be here for the opening game. Sadly, Wilkens, an NBA Hall of Famer, coach of the 1979 Seattle championship team, and the most popular basketball person in Seattle ever, died in November 2025. But it would be a great storyline and an important link to the past if we could welcome Kevin D. back to Seattle. That possibility is now only three basketball seasons away.
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