Kevin Durant needs to punch a higher floor to get

Electric word, lifeIt means forever and thats a mighty long time.What I know for sure is Prince was wrong about the last part. As it turns out, it isnt such a long time after all.MORE: | In the wake of a lo s like Prince, we dive into the greatne s the man, . And we mourn not Jesse Winker Jersey simply what is gone but what might have been, the concerts, the guitar solos, the po sibility.Electric word, life, when applied to an athletic career as well.COLLINS: Because a player has two lives; the one we all get and the time spent on the court or field or ice or pool. And this, too, will feel like a mighty long time.Until it isnt.Kevin Durant (Getty Images)And so I thought of Prince, this little tiny piece of his genius, as I watched Kevin Durant and his Thunder . Because there is never enough time, and what little there is flies.When KD came into this Reggie Sanders Jersey league nine years ago all limbs and baby face, everything was in front of him. Everything still is, just on a shorter porch. And that ring, that championship that felt so inevitable, has a little doubt cloud overhead.MORE: It is not huge. He is still young. Still amazing. He has free agency looming. He has a chance to organize a Miami 2.0 in Golden State, D.C., OKC.To pretend his window has not shrunk is to ignore reality. I remember covering that Heat-Thunder Finals; the fight put up by Durant and Westbrook and Harden, LeBrons eventual coronation and the prevailing feeling that OKC had next. The Heat would win one or two or six and then the baton would be wrested away by this young group that would Scott Schebler Jersey win one or two or six.But way leads to way, as the poem goes.MORE: And Harden is gone and this little wunderkind named Steph Curry has the baton in his hot little hand. This is the West now. It is brutal sledding with Golden State and Steph, San Antonio and Pop, and then there is The LeBron Project on the other sideif the Thunder getthat far.They have as good a chance as anybody against Golden State, whichis not exactly great. But the only way they do is if Durant . He owned his talent that day. He always did, if we are Matt Kemp Jersey being honest. This is what greatne s does and what Durant needs to show. If OKC is going to win a championship, Durant has to be the best player on the floor. Hemaybehas to be better than that, and that means scoring and leading and being coachable. It is one of the best qualities a pro athlete needs, one of the biggest indicators of how that short athletic life goes.And if they do not do it this year, he has to want no, demand a coach capable of doing that, of pushing him and his teammates, of making him great.So when this little sliver of electric is over, and its a Tucker Barnhart Jersey mighty short time, he can walk away knowing he had given the performance of a lifetime.