Kevin Durant turned 33 this week as he enters his 15th season in the NBA.

Durant says he is "more at ease" and relaxed mentally at this stage of his career as opposed to when he was younger.

"[When you are younger] you want to establish yourself in the league," Durant said Thursday after the Nets' practice at their training camp at the University of San Diego. "Sometimes you may overthink it and may think too much about reactions and opinions of others because you are on the journey to perfection. But start to relax a little bit and understand what this is about and understand the long game, and it definitely made my mental a little bit more at ease coming to the gym every day and not focusing on that stuff."

The Brooklyn Nets are widely considered the title favorites, but Durant says the pressure will not affect this veteran group.

"Yeah, outside pressure don't really matter much," Durant said when asked whether pressure is even an issue at this stage in his career. "I think we all internally put pressure on ourselves because we hold ourselves to a high standard and you want to play well every time you step out there; that is just who we are as competitors.

"As far as the outside noise, no disrespect for you guys [in the media], for our families, friends and even our fans expecting us to do so much -- if we don't live up to those, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter. But we want to come out and play a great brand of basketball every night and we hold ourselves to that standard. I expect us to come out there with some swagger and some intensity. But outside noise shouldn't matter much to this group."