Kevin Durant had his most intense year. Long regarded as one of the softspoken 'good guys' in the NBA, he tore that image to shreds last season.

In the 2012-2013 season, Kevin Durant collected no less than 12 technical fouls. That's the same amount of technicals he accumulated in the prior five years of his career combined.

They used to be the darlings of the NBA. They talk about the OKC Thunder model of building a championship contender through draft picks and excellent player management. Indeed, they had the best of three consecutive draft classes (Durant in '07, Westbrook in '08 and Harden in '09) and formed their own Big Three without spitting on an entire city. Oklahoma became the poster boy of hope for the small market teams.

It was a great 'Good' vs 'Evil' plot for the NBA. The Big Three of Miami with their black and red jerseys with a flaming basketball for a logo, and OKC with the easy light blue. The Heat took first blood, but with the youth on the side of the Thunder,  the world awaited when the 'good guys' can finally overcome the Evil Empire.

Then, the Harden trade happened.

Now OKC is the testimony to the sad truth of the NBA - money matters, and market matters. Despite their success, Thunder owners were not willing to swim into luxury tax waters. Thus, they had to trade Harden.

This provided the backdrop for an angry, intense Kevin Durant. A Durant who will engage Dwyane Wade in a Twitter war, among others.

In an interview with The Oklahoman, the lone star of the Thunder (at least in the season opener without Westbrook) shares his thoughts.

Durant also dreams big, he's just not outspoken like Lebron:

"I want to be the greatest. I want to be remembered as one of the greatest. When they redo that top 50 players (of all time), I want to be a part of that. This whole thing is a fraternity. But it's a different fraternity when you're staring at a group of guys that won championships, MVPs, and you can say you're on that level with them in your career. It's only a handful of guys, maybe 15, 20 guys, that you can get in that conversation with. And I'm nowhere near there yet. So that's where I want to be."

However, his focus remains the same: "I've played in the All-Star Games; I've scored 30 points, 40 points before; had a triple-double before. I feel individually, like stats and stuff, I feel like I did my job with that and I established myself. But it's about winning championships, and the first thing I got to get out of my head is 'I.' It's like, 'I want to win a championship.' It's not about that because one guy doesn't win it, two guys don't win it, three guys don't win it. So it's about the whole team, the whole organization winning a championship."

On last year's tumultuous season and his own breakdowns: "The world beats you down for that type of stuff. And I was letting that get into my mind, listening to what other people say. It was really taking control of my life basically, because I was letting it seep into my personal relationships, just everything. And now, I'm playing free and having fun with the game and just letting it all hang out."

Final word: "Nobody on the other team, what they got to say about my opinions or anything, I'm not losing sleep over none of that. Because I'm enjoying myself playing this game. I'm blessed to just be in this league. You can bash me. You can bash our team. So what? I mean, at the end of the day, I'm still doing something I love every single day, and I'm fighting for something bigger than myself. And that's a great feeling."