[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] and when it hits kevin durant's hands it's a good pass no matter who it was intended for in a tie game can you believe it oh my goodness boy i'm kevin durant y'all know who i am kevin durant has earned the nickname slim reaper because his unprecedented combination of size skill and shooting prowess made him the literal definition of a walking bucket the man was born to put the ball in the basket but how did we get to a point where every basketball fan on the planet knows who he is [Music] this is the story behind kevin durant durant was born and raised in the washington dc area one of four children of wanda durant and wayne pratt who was in and out of the family's life during kevin's childhood wanda raised kevin and older brother tony mostly as a single mother working overnight shifts at the post office there were many nights that i didn't know how we were going to make it even at a young age however the lanky younger brother of the family could already envision how he was going to eventually propel himself to fame and fortune kevin came to me about 10 11 that he wanted to be a professional basketball player and i said okay i said but i'm going to push you and you're going to be mad at me at times and i'm going to push you because this is what you said you wanted and i would come in the gym after doing practice and the coach said i want him to do 25 or something and i was like i don't know you need to 100. oh but i didn't care because this is what you said you wanted so if you want it you have to do more than the next person between kevin's size and natural talents and wanda's motherly motivation durant blossomed as a young hooper becoming an aau star in the maryland area while playing with future nbars like michael beasley ty lawson and graves vasquez durant spent his first three years of high school at national christian academy and legendary oak hill before transferring to montrose christian school for his senior year where the budding prodigy took home the washington post's all-met basketball player of the year award and won mvp at the 2006 mcdonald's all-american game after a high school career like that it's no surprise that durant considered traditional ncaa powerhouses like unc duke yukon kentucky and louisville but in kd's own words or rather tweets he wanted to blaze his own trail it was at the university of texas where the basketball world would truly come to understand how special a talent durant was it was also at texas where durant became synonymous with the number 35 which he began to wear as a tribute to aau coach and father figure charles craig who was murdered at age 35. i wanted to do something for him but i didn't know what my grandfather said the best thing you could do is we're 35.
that's the age he when he got murdered when durant walked into texas no freshman had ever won any of the various national player of the year awards by the time durant's loan season as a longhorn was over his name was on the naismith award the wooden award the associated press award and the awards voted on by the writers association and the coaches association basically every single national player of the year award you can come up with it was an easy choice given that the freshman forward averaged 25. 8 points 11. 1 rebounds 1.
3 assists 1. 9 steals and 1. 9 blocks in leading texas to a 25 and 10 record and the second round of the ncaa tournament durant goes against rush again gets him to jump hits the jumper and a chance for a three-point play and it was an even easier choice for durant to forgo any more collegiate ball entering the 2007 nba draft as the consensus number two prospect behind ohio state big man greg oden with the second pick in the 2007 nba draft the seattle supersonics select kevin durant from the university of texas durant has become a complete basketball player whose freakish length also makes him an underrated defensive terror but his other worldly abilities boil down to some very simple facts that were evident even back then entering the nba he's a borderline seven footer forget his listed height of 610 who can put the ball on the floor and get his shot off over any defender who's ever roamed the earth and before we move on let's just get this out of the way now yes it's easy in hindsight given how brittle odin proved to be and given what we now know about the evolution of the game to say the blazers were nuts for passing on durant but go back to 2007 and find even a couple experts who had him number one on their big boards you can't and wait until you get a load of the freak of nature called greg oden greg oden is faster than durant in the three-quarter court sprint he is quicker than durant in the lane agility drill and has better numbers in the running and standing vertical jumps in the standing vertical jump a seven foot center got a better vertical than kevin durant okay draft over portland's taking greg oden there's no other argument any talk show host who says durant should be number one in doing their homework or is just trying to incite calls and be controversial greg oden is the number one pick it's all over katie's lone year in seattle lived up to the hype durant cruised to rookie of the year honors by averaging better than 20 points per game and though he was far from the efficient scoring machine he would become he joined lebron james and carmelo anthony as the only teenager at the time to have averaged 20 plus in a season they needed they got it seven field goals for durant a much better half here he has 18 points it was during durant's sophomore season as a pro the franchise's first in oklahoma city that he and the thunder began to turn some heads in the nba even though the thunder started 3 and 29 during the 2008 09 campaign and finished 23 and 59 the budding chemistry and potential between durant and a rookie named russell westbrook was starting to show thank you very much duran also averaged 25 points per game as a 20 year old sophomore from there kd and the thunder were off to the races durant and westbrook were joined by rookies james harden and serge ibaka the following year and the upstart thunder won 50 games before pushing the eventual nba champion lakers to six games in the playoffs durant also won his first of four scoring titles that season averaging 30.
1 points while suiting up for all 82 games by the 2010-11 season durant's fourth year as a pro the thunder were a western conference finalist and they memorably rallied back from an 0-2 hole in the 2012 west finals against san antonio to set up an nba finals clash with the big three era heat flash has it popped away collision encephalosa here comes duran so the basket launches and fires it down durant was fantastic in those finals averaging better than 30 points per game but his supporting cash just wasn't up to the task against a lebron-led heat team on a mission many believe that 2012 loss would be merely the first of many finals trips for this once in a generation collection of young talent but they had a remarkable run you see the emotion from durant pouring out this team will be a force to be reckoned with great sportsmanship afterwards such respect between the two teams certainly durant and lebron james but it ultimately proved to be their peak hardin was traded to houston later that year in what's now considered one of the cheapest and most short-sighted roster decisions in history trying to get three down to three down to two it's a three good good he got it james hardened up and seemingly nothing went right for okc after the finals loss and that hardened trade westbrook's knee injury derailed the 60 win thunder in 2013 durant's first major injury a foot fracture prevented the team from being much of a factor in 2014-15 as every nba fan is now well aware okc blew a 3-1 lead against the 73-win warriors in the 2016 west finals setting in motion durant's eventual arrival in the bay area once the warriors themselves blew a 3-1 lead against lebron's cavs in that year's nba finals i think we both blocked that whole year out of our memory for sure so we're good the warriors recruitment of durant included draymond green calling kd from the oracle parking lot after the finals lost to cleveland and a now infamous meeting in the hamptons that included the warriors biggest stars before we move on to durant's triumphs as a warrior let's go back to his final few years as a member of the thunder when katie's personal accolades continued to pile up but whispers of a divide between durant and westbrook grew louder so too did katie's apparent displeasure with the media we'll get to that durant's 2013-14 season was one for the ages knocked away by johnson durant he's gonna pull up for the lead and he throws it he averaged 32 points 7. 4 rebound and 5. 5 assists while joining the ultra exclusive 50 40 90 club and was named league mvp i've been second my whole life durant told sports illustrated in the spring of 2013 i was the second best player in high school i was the second pick in the draft i've been second in the mvp voting three times i came second in the finals i'm tired of being second i'm not going to settle for that i'm done with it a year later in the spring of 2014 durant stood at a podium having finally convinced voters that he was basketball's best that season which prompted one of the most touching and memorable moments in mvp speech history we wasn't supposed to be here you made us believe you kept us off the street put clothes on our backs food on the table when you didn't eat you make sure we ate we went to sleep hungry you sacrificed for us you the real mvp durant was seen as a media darling who could do no wrong at that point so what changed in his perception of the media shortly after that was it the oklahoman running this headline was it because he felt we minimized that iconic mvp speech or was it a personal matter according to a 2019 wall street journal piece shortly after the real mvp speech durant and his mom went through a months-long rift after kevin took control of his own financial affairs from wanda was it sour grapes about still being seen as second best even after winning mvp frustration over the fact he was sidelined due to injury shortly after winning that mvp award or was he simply buying into his own nike marketing campaign that literally proclaimed kd is not nice it can't be kevin he's the nicest guy in the nba whatever the reason durant went from media darling to telling the media they quote unquote don't know in the span of less than a year and it's only gotten worse since then durant has engaged in a hostile back and forth with the media over the last five years or so which boiled over in 2019.
