It was a subtle message from Kevin Durant. Nothing flashy. Nothing in your face. Just simple and low-key, but with a very strong point. With KD, would you expect any different?
Against Russia, Durant simply wrote “1972″ on the tops of both his sneakers. It wasn’t anything flashy, but it was certainly classy. If you don’t know, yesterday was the 38-year anniversary of the infamous 1972 gold medal game featuring the then USSR against the United States. And guess who Team USA faced yesterday in the quarterfinals of the World Championships. It wasn’t actually the USSR, but it pretty much was. (If you don’t know what happened in that game, read this and then watch this. It’ll explain everything.)
Not only does it remind me of how proud I am to be an American, but it should remind followers from all nations in this tournament that being part of a team can be a pretty special thing. Whether you’re a member of Team USA at one point, CCCP, the Russian team, or a squad that didn’t even exist in the 1988 Olympics (which took place the month Kevin Durant was born), it hardly matters. You’re a teammate for life, and I appreciated Durant’s little message to his teammates.
For whatever reason, I got started reading basketball stories three years old last night. I really don’t know why, but nevertheless, most were pretty fascinating to look over. And if you remember, three years ago, a guy just completed his freshman year at Texas and was just drafted into the NBA. So this Kevin Durant guy was having a number of stories written about him.
A lot of it was the “Oden or Durant?” stuff, which is interesting to see how many people actually favored Durant over Oden (most try and say the consensus was Oden, but a good number of people liked KD), but this one feature in particular from the Austin American-Statesman gave a little peep into the player we see today. One paragraph really stands out:
The coach put him through shooting drills, passing drills and dribbling drills. An AAU official walked in one day and found Durant in the gym, running and dribbling up and down the scuffed-up court with baby-blue three-point lines, making layups. No one else was around. Durant’s grandmother brought supper to him at the activity center. He ate a bite or two, left the plate and sauntered back to the bin of old, smoothed balls. Durant did his homework in the study room, napped behind a curtain in the gym and practiced until past dark. Brown gave Durant a quotation to remember: Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. He made Durant write it 200 times on a piece of notebook paper.
Then if you remember KD’s draft night during his interview with Stuart Scott, he talked about that same quote and hammered home the point: work hard. We know this about Durant now, but it’s more interesting to see how people really knew it about him three years ago. With a lot of players, it’s just lip service to talk about hard work. With KD, it was the truth.
We’ve all seen the video. Nenad Krstic threw some punches, tossed a chair, then got slapped with a suspension. And in a recent interview with HoopsHype, Krstic says he got what he deserved.
Do you think your punishment after the Greece-Serbia brawl was fair?
NK: I deserved it. But I didn’t deserve the talk in the newspaper. I’m not one person to get in fights on the court, but I was just trying to protect my teammates.
Like you said, you don’t look like a guy that’s going to get involved in fights. What happened to you there?
NK: Nothing. I think everybody who knows me knows that I’m going to have their their back if there is a fight or a problem or anything like that. I always have my teammates’ backs. So there was a fight, I saw my teammate lying down on the court and I tried to help. And they attacked me and whoever attacks me, I’m going to attack him.
You hear that KD? Nenad’s got your back, yo. But despite the fight being ugly and the chair toss certainly embarrassing, the brawl did show exactly that. Krstic will be there for his teammates. And that might be something that comes in handy this season as the entire Thunder roster has a big target on their backs.
People are going to try and rough up the mild mannered Kevin Durant. People are going to push KD, shove KD and maybe even a few will take a cheap shot or two. But if you do, you might just be getting a chair to the face.
Most of us would assume that if you play or want to play basketball professionally, specifically in the NBA, you’d know something about it. That’s not the case for recent Thunder draft pick Tibor Pleiss, who pleads ignorance when talking about the NBA. Via Tom Ziller of Fanhouse:
For the NBA Draft day in New York, I was not nervous at all, and this because of a simple reason: I did not know anyone of all those College players; also this guy called Wall, I have never heard of him before. The only one I spoke with a bit was Kevin Seraphin from France. I was only nervous because of the things going on around the ceremony. Knowing that millions of people in front of their TV can watch me when I eventually fall down walking up the stairs. Additionally, it was extremely cold and I was freezing. I did not really feel well in the Madison Square Garden.
In general, I am not really interested in International or NBA Basketball. Most of the players I play against during this tournament or the World Championship, I have never heard of. For example, when we played Serbia last summer as a preparation game for the Eurobasket, it was the first time I saw Nenad Krstic play. My ignorance may sound strange to others, but it has the advantage that I go unbiased into the games and take every opponent serious.
Of course the loaded question is, does he know this guy called Durantula? Or at least, did he know before June 24th?
I’m a sucker for any story that illustrates how Kevin Durant’s profile has raised, but not just among basketball fans, but around the world. We all know how likable, humble and down to earth he is. And now other people, high profile people, are taking notice.
When I was younger (my role models) were Michael Johnson and Don Quarrie. Johnson was pretty much the best runner in the world, particularly at the 200m – my favourite event – and Quarrie was one of the best Jamaican sprinters in history, so I just wanted to be like them. I still have people I look up to even now. At the moment it’s Kevin Durant, the basketball player (he plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder). Kevin is a good leader; he’s very strong and very determined. Whatever he does, whether he’s tired or injured, he works through it, pushes on and challenges his team-mates to do their best.
Your know you’re making a pretty huge impact when other athletes that are known for being the best at their craft take notice and look up to you, even though you don’t compete in that same sport.
This is just extremely high praise for KD from someone that you wouldn’t think would give it. Someone in the NBA, yeah, sure. But Usain Bolt, the guy that blasted sprinting records in Beijing and is a world-class athlete? That’s something worth mentioning.
No, I’m not talking about the three Thunder players some already identify with that. I’m talking about Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and Kevin Durant. Whoa, what?
But as long as we’re using our wildest imaginations, can we design a more potent three-headed monster than James-Wade-Bosh? Actually, we can.
Employing the star-studded template of a point guard, wing scorer and big man, imagine this triumvirate: Paul, Kevin Durant and Dwight Howard in Oklahoma City. Collectively, again using Paul’s 2008-09 injury-free season, this group would edge the Miami trio with a total of 78.7 wins.
The scary thing? Depending on how the new collective bargaining agreement shakes out, it could be a viable scenario down the road. Howard and Paul each control their destiny in the summer of 2012, as they have player options for the 2012-13 season. Should the two opt out of their respective contracts with Orlando and New Orleans, the potential is there for a more powerful union than the one we just witnessed.
To be sure, there’s a difference between a plausible scenario and a realistic one. It’s hard to imagine Paul and Howard leaving money on the table to make the trio happen; the owners will try to bargain for a harder, lower salary cap in the imminent meetings with the Player’s Association. A slice in spending power would all but prohibit Paul and Howard joining Durant in Oklahoma City.
Still, we can dream right? Especially when one just became a reality.
Also, I thought I’d break a little something for you – Sources: LeBron will not announce Oklahoma City as his destination. Also, he will not play for the Minnesota Twins, Baylor Bears or Toronto Maple Leafs. Carry on.
I’ve heard that the Kings, Detroit Pistons, Indiana Pacers, New Orleans Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Houston Rockets, Milwaukee Bucks, Chicago Bulls, San Antonio Spurs, Oklahoma City Thunder, Portland Trail Blazers and Denver Nuggets have all been talking about moving picks. The Kings, Pacers, Hornets and Bucks would like to trade down, the Pistons, Grizzlies, Raptors, Rockets, Spurs, Thunder, Blazers and Nuggets would like to move up and the Pacers, Hornets and Bulls might want to get out of the draft completely.
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From what I can gather, the Pacers, Hornets, Raptors, Spurs and Thunder are the most active right now.
So to recap: The most active teams that want to move down or out are the Pacers and Hornets and wanting to move up are the Raptors, Thunder and Spurs. The Hornets draft at 11 and likely want to shed some salary (Paja, Okafor, etc) for the price of draft picks plus a quality player, and the Pacers draft at 10 and likely want a point guard.
In doing my usual perusal of the web for anything Thunder related or interesting about basketball in general I came across this little piece over at Wages of Wins-Dave Berri’s blog.
I usually read WOW whenever they have something new up, and lately Berri has been featuring guest writers on the blog who subscribe to the whole “Wins Produced” model of player and team evaluation. You can take that for what it’s worth. As far as I’m concerned Wins Produced and Win Score (Wins Produced’s little brother) are as good as any other one number metric out there for evaluation of performance, but I’m not convinced you can boil any player down to just “one number” and say “player A is better than player B because this metric scores him better”. At least no “one number” metric yet has convinced me of such.
Anyway, today’s article over at WOW is about the Thunder and the rise from cellar dweller to 50 wins in just one season. It is written by James Brocato who is listed as a passionate supporter of the Supersonics, yet I didn’t really sense any sour grapes or anything. But what did stand out to me is the complete absence of any reference to the improved team defense. In fact, the word defense is nowhere to be found in the entire article-I checked twice.
I haven’t posted anything in a while and I thought this might be a decent read for a quiet-no basketball Sunday, so enjoy a fair article about the Thunder and discuss!
Of course, obligatory congrats to the Lakers and Laker fans out there. But remember, Oklahoma City had a large hand in getting LA’s attention and forcing them to turn it on. Laker players gave OKC credit the entire postseason. So we’ll take that supplemental ring any time you get ready to send it.
Daniel Orton denies OKC’s reported promise: “There are rumors that the Thunder have promised me something, and they haven’t,” Orton wrote in an e-mailed statement to The Oklahoman. “I discontinued my workouts for other reasons.”
The Rookie Wall compares Daniel Orton and Larry Sanders: “Daniel Orton will give you a stronger, more reliable presence in the post than Larry Sanders can give you. Sanders is very athletic for his size and can be good as a slasher or in transition, but he will struggle greatly going against NBA-size forwards and centers down low. And since he doesn’t have much of a face up game or a reliable jump shot, he won’t be able to make those bigger players pay for sagging off him, which effectively neutralizes his athleticism.” Read more…
Ian Thompson of SI writes that OKC is the most efficient franchise: “Clay Bennett’s payroll is the envy of his fellow owners. For starters, no team has less salary on the books than the Thunder, but look deeper: More than $5 million is covered by an insurance policy on Matt Harpring, whose contract the Thunder took on while netting rookie point guard Eric Maynor in the deal. That leaves the Thunder at $49 million in actual operating costs — or an unheard-of $1 million per win. Of that total, another $8.7 million is paid to veterans Etan Thomas and Kevin Ollie, who rarely play. Boil it all down and their nine-man rotation is making $32.8 million this season in return for the league’s 10th-best record and fourth-stingiest field-goal defense.”
Since this entire year/season has seemingly been about entering into uncharted territory, it’s no real surprise that the Thunder organization and fan base find themselves in yet another new quandary regarding the team and front office that every successful team and franchise experiences without exception.
People want your success—and that often means they want the actual parts of your success that made you, well, successful.
So it really shouldn’t come as any surprise to the Thunder or their fans that other teams and front offices in the NBA have now been rumored or even blatantly inquiring about the availability of key components to the Thunder’s 50 win season, per league sources.
This is what happens when you start winning and especially when you start winning without forcing your owners to spend millions upon absurd millions to achieve that goal. If you can perform efficiently and inexpensively, well, then you’re going to be a hot commodity in the National Basketball Association. Read more…
Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images
