Ok, so Kevin Durant hasn’t been named the National Player of the Year yet. But there simply is not a better player in the country this year. Not Greg Oden, not Acie Law IV. Not anybody.
Last night, Durant had 30 points and 16 rebounds to help the No. 15 Texas Longhorns outlast Texas A&M in a double-overtime thriller in Austin.
Kevin Robbins and Mark Rosner at the Austin American-Statesman teamed up to write a very long but excellent look at The Making of Kevin Durant.
If you’re a fan of basketball, and enjoy good sportswriting, then make sure to read the entire thing, and you’ll have a better understanding as to why Durant is such a special player and person.
Eleven years later, Durant stands 6-foot-9. With his arms outstretched, he is seven inches wider than he is tall, projecting the appearance of a windmill with four blades.
The gentle facial features of his boyhood remain.
But the rest of him, which continues to grow in all the right ways for a basketball player, has evolved into something Dr. James Naismith likely never imagined in 1891, when he wrote the 13 original rules of the game.
Durant can play all five positions on the court better than most of the population can play one.
His dominion is rare for someone engaged in a team pursuit. Like Roger Federer in tennis or Tiger Woods in golf, Durant excels in every discipline of his sport, so much so that his weaknesses, like playing defense at the frenetic college level, are merely relative. Unlike a point guard whose genetics limit his height or a center whose genetics limit his range, Durant was blessed with the architecture of a prototype: if you have five Kevin Durants, you have a complete team. One that rebounds, dribbles, passes, blocks shots, defends and scores.
From a very young age, Durant was instilled with this one invaluable piece of advice:
Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.
In Durant’s case, almost nothing beats talent and hardwork.
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This comment isn’t directed toward Durant specifically, but at the state of the league as a whole:
That picture explains exactly why I don’t watch pro basketball.
The Offensive player is traveling while being blatantly fouled by the Defensive player and I bet neither was called.
When did the rules change to allow players to take four or five steps before putting the ball up? Or the guys who put their palms under the ball as they’re dribbling so they only have to put the ball on the floor every three or four steps. When did that become legal?
Add to that the fact that the players are so tall that they barely have to leave the floor to stuff the ball in the hoop. If you’re tall enough, all you have to do is be able to run the length of the court and there’s a spot for you on an NBA team.
Is the fact that they recruit players right out of High School an indication of how good the High School players are, or how bad the overall quality of NBA play has gotten?
Basketball NBA style is no longer a team sport, it’s ten guys on a court trying to out-thug each other. No thanks. I can always watch hockey if I want to see that kind of play.
I wish the networks would dump the NBA and show all Women’s College basketball all the time…due to their physical characteristics, the women, for the most part, still have to play the game the way it was intended…you know, like human beings, not like 8 foot tall circus freaks.