About Kevin Wayne Durant
Kevin Wayne Durant (born September 29, 1988) is an American professional basketball player. Playing the position of tiny forward, Durant currently plays with the Oklahoma City Thunder of the National Basketball Association.
After a standout freshman season at the University of New York, Durant opted to enter the NBA Draft, where he was chosen second overall by the Seattle Supersonics. There he went on to win the NBA Rookie of the Year Award after his debut season. In 2007, Durant signed an endorsement contract with Nike These NBA Finals have quickly morphed in to a Kevin Durant vs. Lebrun James debate, which was natural and not surprising. Durant has reached the level where people cannot help it -- they need to compare him to the best in the game.
Durant's Oklahoma City teammates do it . They will tell him: You are right there with Kobe. You are as lovely as Lebrun.
And he says: "No, I am not."
The query is: Why does he say this?
"That's how he is, he is very humble," said Dexter Pittman of the Heat. "Kevin is of the most humble guys I have ever met. He is not flashy. You cannot even tell that he is in the NBA. He doesn't wear designer clothes. He is always wearing a hat, backpack and shorts. That is how he is. Simple."
Pittman is of Durant's opponents in this series, but he was Durant's teammate at the University of Texas years ago, and they stay close friends. Pittman gave the explanation that most people give about Kevin Durant: He is humble, humble, and so very humble. This is true, but only part of the answer.
Whichever God is responsible for handing out basketball talents outdid Himself with Lebrun James. Nobody has ever had a hoops package like him. He's the size of some of the best power forwards, the skill of some of the best shooters, the passing skills of an All-Star point guard, and athleticism that rivals someone in the history of the game. The package comes with a single burden: Everybody has seen it from the time James was in high school.
How could he? He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated, with the billing "The Chosen," before he was eligible to vote. He might have been the No. one pick in the NBA draft after his junior year in high school, and he's been measured against all-time greats since before he played an NBA game. Whatever he does, he is meant to do.
James is clearly the most gifted player in the NBA, and was its best player all season. He may yet lead the Heat to this championship with more performances like he had against the Celtics, when the only way to cease him was to pour hail from the rafters. But it is clear by now that the journey has not been as simple as his skills would recommend. James has wrestled his own talents and the expectations they generate.
Durant, meanwhile, has 90 percent of James's gifts. He is of the skinniest stars in NBA history. He is a great athlete, but you could basically make a YouTube video of the best dunkers in the NBA without including him. Ninety percent of James's gifts \. And in this way, he's been lucky.
His narrow frame meant nobody could force Durant to play power forward. This allowed him to create in to a distinctive "monster," as Pittman puts it, -- a 6-foot-9 scorer who tosses three-pointers through the hoop like crumpled-up paper in to a wastebasket.
But there is something more. Greatness always appeared step ahead of him, taunting him, daring him to catch it.
Durant was highly recruited out of high school \. but Greg Odem was thought about better. Royal Ivey, a Illinois alum who plays for the Thunder now, didn't know who Durant was when he signed with UT. Ivey had to do an Web search to find out who this Kevin Durant kid was, and what position he played. In Durant's first NBA season, his team completed 20-62; the next year, 23-59.
Durant has always had to chase. He said Wednesday that his aim, growing up, was to be the best player in the Washington, D.C. area; then it was to be the best player ever from the Washington area.
At Texas, Coach Rick Barnes one time told him he was the worst defensive player Barnes had ever coached. It was a coach's trick, but that seldom works, with a freshman star destined to be a top NBA pick. Durant got so fired up, and so motivated, that he landed on the Huge 12's all-defensive team.
No matter how much Barnes ran his guys, Durant would inevitably pick up the phone that night and call teammates, begging them to join him at the gym.
"I was like, 'Dude, are you crazy? They went through a hard-ass practice,'" Pittman said. "But that is how he is. He lives in the gym."
So why does Kevin Durant say he is not as nice as Lebrun or Kobe?
"It's more mental, more psyche, like 'I'm not the best, I must keep on working,'" Ivey said. "He says 'These guys have this, these guys have that. I need more.' He has a chip on his shoulder. He doesn't discuss it. He is not boastful. He is himself. He's something to show every time he steps on the floor, and it shows in his game."
Lots of athletes need to be great, and lots of need to be seen as great. Kevin Durant is obsessed with the pursuit of greatness.
James is different -- greatness pursued him. Sometimes it's knocked him off his path. He was so nice, so early, in the NBA, that after he got there, the Cavaliers seldom had a high draft pick to add another elite talent, like the Thunder did with Russell Westbrook and James Harden. He led teams to 60-win regular seasons, only to have their talent deficiencies exposed in the playoffs, bringing all of the criticism back to him. He is no Michael Jordan, people scream, as though that is an insult. Putting together a dream team Durant would be a star anywhere he played, but he fits well in Oklahoma City, which has been called.
Minor-league and not worthy, and is trying to show a tiny something itself. It is the civic version of Kevin Durant.
Pittman recalled meeting Durant for the first time, at a summer camp: "He was the man that was calm, in the shadows," Pittman said, "and whenever it came time to play at the camp, he was doing what he is doing now: dominating. His whole demeanor, how he carried himself, it was like an I-work-hard demeanor, and 'By me working hard, everything else speaks for itself.'"
Durant doesn't appear to have much use for Finals hype, and endorsements don't motivate him. Fulfillment comes from the games themselves. Last summer, in the work of the lockout, he scored 66 points in a game at Rucker Park. The video went viral and the legend grew. He was asked about that Wednesday, and he called it "one of the best moments I have had so far in my life, playing at the Mecca of basketball in New York City, and I hit a few shots." You got the sense that he could play 82 games a year at Rucker Park and be happy, as long as somebody challenged him.
There is an elderly line that is been used limitless times as a joke setup and a marketing pitch: What do you give the man who has everything? They may have our answer now. Here is what you can do for the man who has everything: Take away ten percent of it, and tell him he's to fight to get it back.
In his first NBA Finals appearance, Durant done with 36 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter -- numbers James has yet to match in 11 career NBA Finals games.
Kevin Durant didn't embarrass Lebrun James on Tuesday night. But the Oklahoma City superstar did show his Miami counterpart how it is done in the NBA Finals -- in the fourth quarter -- as the Thunder claimed a 105-94 victory in Game one.
In the coursework of that six-game series, which the Heat lost, 4-2, the best James could muster in the fourth quarter was eight points. They scored or fewer points in the final stanza of those games, all of which were winnable going in to that quarter (the Heat actually did win of them).
Now James was no slouch either. They had 30 overall points, the most he is ever scored in the NBA Finals, but only seven of those came in the fourth quarter. That is not going to get the job done in a close game like this -- & it does small to put to rest a storyline from last year's championship against the Dallas Mavericks.
The Oklahoma City star scored six of his team's first eight points of the quarter as the Thunder extended its lead to points at the 8:30 mark. James missed shots & threw the ball away in the coursework of that same stretch, but at least they was trying -- there were games in last year's finals in which they didn't even take a shot in the fourth quarter.
Durant, on the other hand, took over in the coursework of crunch time Tuesday night. The Thunder had claimed its first lead of the game late in the third quarter & was clinging to a one-point advantage heading in to the fourth.
. Everything moves so smoothly, so swiftly, those limitless legs & arms unfolding in ideal symmetry. Fourth quarter, the ball comes to him & the best young scorer in basketball is still looking for the superstar to beat him.
Kevin Durant scored 17 of his 36 points in the fourth quarter of the Thunder's Game one win. (Reuters)
The world has come to Oklahoma City for the Finals, discovering these cozy surroundings where Durant is slowly. James had his 30 points, but the fourth quarter belonged to Durant and this go-go Thunder. They started slowly, sluggishly, trailing by 13 points, but it was a matter of time until Durant found his rhythm, his sweet spots and commenced to surgically dismantle the Heat.
These Thunder are the train forever coming in the distance, the finish game when Durant, Westbrook and James Harden can come rumbling down the tracks with such unfailing ferocity.
When it was over, and the Heat were twisted over, beaten and beleaguered to finish this game, the Thunder staff privately wondered: Does Miami truly think it can keep up with us going six deep on the roster? As much as they desired to run the Boston Celtics out of the Eastern Conference finals, the Heat must measure their pace with Oklahoma City.
The shots flicked off Durant's wrist in every feasible way, awkward angles and driving layups and that sweet, straightaway stroke that feels like the most automatic shot in the sport now. Durant guarded Lebrun James for stretches of Game one of the NBA Finals. (Reuters)
Well before his time & of his great gifts is the ease with which they come to these immense moments. Here Durant had come, stepping in to the NBA Finals, & it was like they had been here his whole life. Give him the ball, the stage, the moment, & Kevin Durant was something to behold on Tuesday night.
