Durant Puts Basketball First, and Second
(The New York Times)Updated: 2007-06-28 16:08 Kevin Durant averaged 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds last season at Texas. "He's a big-time competitor," the N.B.A. great Jerry West said.
Durant is listed between 6-foot-9 and 6-10, but he can play any area of the
floor.
"I just put basketball first," said Durant, the rare American
teenager who considers driving to the rim a higher pursuit than driving a car.
"That was the last thing on my mind."
The payoff for this single-minded pursuit will come tomorrow night, when Durant, a sleek, multiskilled forward from the University of Texas, is expected to be one of the first two players taken in the N.B.A. draft. By Friday afternoon, he could be driving his luxury vehicle of choice — or, if he wishes, a tractor-trailer filled with them — through the streets of the Pacific Northwest.
Whether Durant, 18, is taken first, by the Portland Trail Blazers, or second, by the Seattle SuperSonics, is almost immaterial. One team will get Greg Oden, 19, a once-a-generation center who packs great fundamentals into his 7-foot frame. The other will get Durant, who has the skills to play all five positions and an intense focus that is unparalleled.
For most of the past decade, Durant has dedicated himself to basketball, and little else. He picked up his driver's license just in time to begin his tour of Seattle, his likely new home. He recently took an informal driving tour with his good friend Spencer Hawes, the University of Washington center who also entered the draft after his freshman year in college.
But basketball has effectively pushed out any hobbies or side interests, and when he is asked what he is second best at, Durant is momentarily stumped. After a chuckle and a long pause, he finds an answer that is more revealing than all of the gigabytes of Durant highlights posted on YouTube.
"I think I can brighten up a room," he said yesterday. "For example, if my mother's down about something, I can just come in and make her laugh. I think that's something I'm good at. That's a good trait to have. I feel good about that."
This is the other thing about Durant that has N.B.A. executives swooning. He is kind and thoughtful, exuding the sort of sound character that makes everyone root for him.
Rick Barnes, the Texas coach, tells of Durant keeping score for the pickup games played by the Longhorns' team managers. When one of the managers turned his ankle, Durant ran onto the court with an ice bag to take care of him.
"That's how you can tell a person, too," Barnes said in a telephone interview. "He respects everybody he meets."
Wanda Pratt, Durant's mother, recalls the time when her son played football at the Boys and Girls Club. Durant was the tallest player, so the coaches made him a lineman. Then they challenged another player to knock him over. If he failed, the youngster would be, effectively, gang-tackled as punishment. Durant took a dive.
"He said: ‘Mom, he couldn't knock me down. I let him knock me down because I
didn't want anybody to hurt him,' " Pratt recalled. "I said, ‘That's really
nice, Kevin, but you have to remember you're playing football.' "
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