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Kevin Durant sprained his left ankle in the third quarter against the Pacers, stepping on Tyler Hansbrough’s foot. Durant stayed in the game to sink two free throws, but immediately exited, eventually needing help from a couple trainers to get to the locker room.

While the injury looked kind of serious, Durant didn’t seem to be all that worried post-game.

“Just a little tweak,” KD told reporters after the game. “I did it before. Just gotta see how I feel in the morning.”

Durant left the arena wearing a protective boot, but that was just deemed a precaution. He said he thinks he could be available to play against the Hawks Friday in Atlanta.

“Hopefully, I’m ready to go,” he said.

Of course that’s how he felt about an hour after the game finished. We’ll see how things go when he wakes up Thursday morning.

News Kevin Durant

So much for that so-called slow start. Kevin Durant has been named the Western Conference Player of the Month for December, the NBA announced Monday.

LeBron James and Dwyane Wade shared the honor in the East.

Durant averaged a league-high 29.4 points as the Thunder went 11-5, tops in the Northwest Division. Durant shot .517 from the field, .411 from beyond the arc and .850 from the free throw line. On Christmas Day, Durant netted a season-high 44 points to go along with seven rebounds, two blocks and two steals as the Thunder defeated Denver 114-106.

Durant has won the player of the month award in the West one other time, taking it home in April 2010 last season.

Other nominees for Western Conference Players of the Month were Dallas Dirk Nowitzki, Golden State’s Monta Ellis, Portland’s LaMarcus Aldridge, San Antonio’s Tony Parker and Utah’s Deron Williams.

Last December was when Durant started his scoring reign of terror where he scored 25 points or more in 29 straight games. In Dec. 2009, KD averaged 29.7 ppg on 49.3 percent shooting and 38.6 percent from 3. So it looks like Durant is almost exactly on the same pace he was last season. And if his team keeps up the winning pace and Durant plays the winter months of 2011 like he did in 2010, he may be getting a bigger award at the end of the year.

News Kevin Durant

This was kind of the topic of discussion in Saturday’s game recap after Oklahoma City’s win over Denver, but I wanted to look a little more closely at Kevin Durant’s work out of the double-team.

Teams have been doubling KD on the catch when he’s posting as well as off the dribble. After his 21-point third quarter, the Nuggets were determined to get the ball out of Durant’s hands. OKC tried to isolate on the wing with Durant, relying on him to either distribute as the double came or score if it didn’t. It worked out pretty well for the Thunder down the stretch and really showcased some more maturity in KD’s ever evolving game. Read more…

Film Study Kevin Durant

Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images

Recently, I just finished watching the greatest television show in history, The Wire. So right now, I take and every opportunity I can get to talk about it. Someone mentions the Baltimore Ravens and five minutes later I’m knee deep talking about Prop Joe and the co-op. It’s getting kind of ridiculous, I’ll admit.

And after the Thunder beat the Celtics without Kevin Durant or Jeff Green, Bill Simmons had an interesting tweet. Basically, he was asking if we could have a potential Avon-Stringer situation with Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. What? Two of my top current interests colliding? I have to write about that!

But it’s a question on the minds of Thunder fans and really, NBA fans everywhere right now, even if they don’t want to say it. Could Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant be too good for each other? Could they clash? I’d by lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about that as I watched Westbrook carry the Thunder to a number of wins as he dropped 36, 43 and 38 points while KD stood by. Truly, the comparison kind of sort of fits. Or potentially fits. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

(Happy weekend everyone. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. Now watch this video I’ve meticulously selected for you.)

I don’t exactly know where Nike is going with this viral video campaign with KD’s neighbor, but I must say, the videos are getting pretty good. At first, it was kind of weird with the taking out of the trash and ordering pizza stuff. But now, they’re getting a little more creative. The latest one is Durant showing off his little Man Cave which is really a Man Shed. It’s kind of weird that they built that cool little hut just for this, but still, neat.

Video Kevin Durant

Sam Forencich/NBAE/Getty Images

It’s no secret. Kevin Durant has not been playing like Kevin Durant through five games. He’s still averaging 26.4 points per game, but it’s on 37.4 percent shooting, including 28.6 percent from 3. (That 0-10 game really threw things off.)

Durant has been a bit of a slow starter the past few years and typically, he hits a stretch around the middle of December where he absolutely becomes unguardable. Last season, he averaged around 25 ppg on mediocre averages before launching into that ridiculous scoring fest where he put up 25 points or more in 29 straight games. He had a stretch where he averaged 32 ppg on 50-50-90 shooting for over a month. So don’t fret. KD’s just a slow cooker.

Though the one interesting thing I’ve notice is how Durant is being used a little different. For instance, the past two games against the Clippers and the Blazers, Durant took just eight total free throws combined. Consider that last season, he attempted over 10 a game and led the league. KD is a fantastic scorer, but he does it so efficiently because he gets to the line and makes his free throws.

But currently, he’s settling. And therefore, he’s not seeing any of those easy looks. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant

Glenn James/NBAE/Getty Images

Early Saturday afternoon, KD put up a cell phone number on Twitter. It wasn’t a prank. He wasn’t messing with anyone. He simply wanted to text battle some fans.

Reader Matt tried it out and posted the results in the comments:

KD continues to amaze.. He released his phone number on twitter asking us to talk to him about football or just talk if we wanna.. The response was OVERWHELMING and it froze his main phone.. So he then said I have a better idea.. “message me your numbers, and i’ll text YOU from my 2nd phone”

Wondering if he really would, I sent him my cell # on twitter, with a message about his ‘Horns asking how they’re going to do.. and w/in about 3 minutes I check twitter again and he tweeted me “@xxxxxx textin u now”…

BAM… I get a text from a 405 #… “horns gonna win tonight n kick OU’s ass next week lol”… proceeded to respond “Hell yah! I’m an O-state grad so I hope so!” and then he asked how I was today and carried on a text convo with me for about 20 minutes..

I didn’t think my man-love for KD could go any higher (no homo)… But he went above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen before… Holy cow..

I could’ve gone without the OU part, but still, KD continues to amaze. On the court, and off.

Other Kevin Durant, Love You So Much KD

NBA 2K11 leaked its starting five ratings today and for the Thunder, our boys go like this: Russell Westbrook, 81; Thabo Sefolosha, 66; Kevin Durant, 91; Jeff Green, 77; Nenad Krstic, 59.

Take that in for a second. First off, even before we get to Durant, Krstic a 59? You know who else is rated a 59? JaVale McGee. Darko Milicic is just two behind at a 57. Amir Johnson is a 63 for crying out loud. I’d say Nenad got the short end here. Nenad was rated a 98 in chair throwing though.

But let’s look at where KD fits in. First, the players rated higher than him: LeBron James (97), Dwyane Wade (97), Kobe Bryant (97), Chris Paul (95), Carmelo Anthony (93) and Deron Williams (92). So according to a video game, Durant is the seventh best player in the league. I certainly don’t agree.

Where does Westbrook fit in? Compared to other point guards, Westbrook was behind Rajon Rondo, Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Tyreke Evans (depending on what you classify him), Derrick Rose, Jason Kidd, Chauncey Billups and Steve Nash. Westbrook was rated higher than Tony Parker, Andre Miller, Stephen Curry, Aaron Brooks and Darren Collison.

While Durant’s 91 isn’t necessarily extremely low, shouldn’t the reigning scoring champ and MVP runner-up maybe have been in the 94-95 range? I don’t disagree with LeBron being higher, but seventh best?

Maybe it’s because Durant is on 2K11′s rivals’ cover in NBA Elite. Maybe it’s just because KD isn’t quite getting the deserved respect yet. Or maybe, it’s just a video game and this actually doesn’t matter at all.

Other Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, Video Games

Zach Harper writing for Press Coverage looks at how the national media has latched on to Kevin Durant The Hero this summer to try and refresh people from LeBron James The Villain. And he makes a point worth repeating:

It’s impossible for the national media to sleep on Kevin Durant because, throughout the summer, we’ve all been made aware of just how good, and important, he is. Because he’s NOT the best player in the league — and probably not even the second or third best player in the NBA — he’s essentially not important on a nationwide scale. It allows him to fade off into semi-obscurity while the rest of us basketball blogging faithful try to convince you of just what exactly it is you’re missing.

It’s a shame too. Kevin Durant is someone who should be a national name and not just a national name when we need the alleged villain to get his comeuppance. It shouldn’t take a superhuman performance from KD or him slaying NBA giants for people to notice just how good he is. We should be prepared to have season-long discussions and celebrations throughout coverage of the NBA season. Instead, he’ll probably just be pushed to the side until we need something different to discuss.

I’m not worried about the national media sleeping on Kevin Durant. I’m just worried they’ll hit the snooze button until they decide he matters again.

It is a bit of a shame that a lot of Durant’s star has come out in an effort to counter LeBron James. I love KD as much as anyone and even I’m getting a bit tired of the He Does It The Right Way stories. Durant is a wonderful and a swell person regardless of what LeBron does. I’m guilty too, I realize. I made the comparison months ago as well. But what if KD doesn’t want to play at the Worlds in 2014 and John Wall leads the U.S. to gold? Is Durant The Bad Guy and Wall The Hero now?

I really don’t worry about the media falling asleep on KD because Durant is simply too good to ignore. He’ll be on national TV all season long, he’ll lead the league in a lot offensive categories and his team should be pretty good too. The only people that will try and hit the snooze on KD will those that weren’t really qualified to comment in the first place.

Commentary Kevin Durant, Media

AP Photo/Daniel Ochoa de Olza

Team USA was up 13 late in the third quarter Sunday when Turkey dared Russell Westbrook to shoot. The nearest defender was closer to the free throw stripe than to Westbrook, who was dribbling beyond the 3-point line. He lofted a three and it splashed through for a 16-point lead.

The camera zoomed in on Westbrook as he backpedaled to the defensive end, and he scowled as he said something to someone. I only saw it once, watching on a TV with no DVR thousands of miles away from the game in Istanbul, but I was pretty sure I could see what he said.

“You want me to f—— shoot it?”

Maybe he said something else, calling a defensive signal even. But that’s what it looked to me like he said as I watched it live. And the scowl on his face said it all in any case. It was a mixture of offense, disgust, pity and aggression — “You better try something else next time.”

The moment for me, along with Kevin Durant’s well-publicized dagger 3-pointer followed by him pounding the USA on his chest and screaming at courtside Turks, defined the edge the Thunder’s two best players undoubtedly sharpened in their gold medal run. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook

(Good Saturday folks. Thank you for your support of Daily Thunder. U-S-A)

I already posted the picture of Kevin Durant with “1972″ written on his shoes. But here’s the video of him talking about that, plus what the other names and things mean to him on the shoe. I really like what he says about how the game starts with your legs and feet, so that’s where he puts the things that mean something to him.

Video Kevin Durant

Garrett W. Ellwood/NBAE/Getty Images

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.)

I thought the always eloquent Kelly Dwyer put it well:

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.

Other Kevin Durant

Ethan Miller/NBAE/Getty Images

The U.S. slipped past a scrappy Russian squad 89-79 today behind a ho-hum 33 from Kevin Durant and 12 from Russell Westbrook. As pointed out to me via Twitter, the Thunder duo notched over half of Team USA’s total output. That’s pretty cool.

KD was absolutely fantastic, hitting 11-19 from the floor and basically carrying the U.S. to a win. Without Durant’s scoring ability, Team USA would have been in a lot of trouble. Westbrook keyed a third quarter run that basically put the game away. He was all over the place, flying in passing lanes, attacking the rim with no regard for his own well-being and dunking the ball on fast breaks. His energy fired up Team USA and was a major part in the win.

But one thing Fran Fraschilla pointed out during the game that I thought was a smart point: In international play thus far, we’ve seen KD play much more as a one-on-one player than we have during his time in the NBA. With Scott Brooks, Durant runs a lot off of high screens and pin-downs. He scores a lot in transition and a lot off cuts.

In fact, according to Synergy Sports, Durant had 634 isolation plays last season and scored on 45 percent of them. Twenty-five percent of Durant’s overall touches come on isolation. He had 204 plays on pick-and-roll plays, 253 on spot-ups, 404 coming off screens and 365 in transition. So yes, most of his plays came in isolation. But compare that to say, LeBron, Kobe, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony who are the other elite scorers Durant is compared with. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant

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.

Other Kevin Durant

Chris Graythen/Getty Images via Zimbio

Yesterday, when I read Tommy Craggs’ column about Kevin Durant I kind of just thought, “Hmm, that’s an interesting take on it. I don’t really agree entirely, but still interesting.” And moved on. I didn’t think much of it.

But then a bunch of people started writing and giving thoughts on it, so here I am a day late about to give a few thoughts of my own. Try and contain your excitement.

It’s true – we don’t really know Kevin Durant. I’ve met him. I’ve talked to him. In all my encounters, nobody seems to more of the real deal than KD. There are countless stories about him out there illustrating how genuine and humble he is. Every media reporter or fan that’s ever talked to or met him has nothing but great things to say. But to Tommy Craggs point, I suppose we don’t really know Kevin Durant. We just know his image. Read more…

Commentary Kevin Durant