Kevin Durant
Some athletes are born to play the game. Kevin Durant isn't one of them.
The smooth 6-foot-10, 225-pound forward, one of the Blazers' top options as the first pick in next month's NBA draft, has an impressive set of skills, 10 years in the making. But 10 words formed the foundation of Kevin Durant's basketball career, which has been built on a strong work ethic and an almost reclusive dedication to the sport.
Hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard.
Those words came from Taras Brown, who coached Kevin Durant's Prince George's (Md.) Jaguars Amateur Athletic Union team that played at Seat Pleasant Activity Center, just outside Washington, D.C., and whom Kevin Durant calls his godfather. Among Brown's drills was making Kevin Durant write those 10 words hundreds of times.
"Without Taras Brown, there would be no Kevin," said Richard Wyatt Jr., a friend who played with Kevin Durant at the rec center. "You would think that was his father."
Brown helped mold Kevin Durant, 18, into a unique and seemingly natural talent. He can play all five positions on the basketball court, and his length -- arms outstretched, his reach is seven inches longer than he is tall -- combined with his shooting ability makes him a tough matchup on offense as well as a disruptive force on defense. And his explosiveness is the kind that seems to separate great NBA players from good ones.
In his one season at the University of Texas (he would be in the NBA already if not for the league's new regulation that requires a player turn 19 in the calendar year he makes himself available for the draft) Kevin Durant averaged 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds. He was chosen national player of the year as a freshman.
Now, he and Ohio State center Greg Oden are the consensus top two picks heading into the June 28 NBA draft. Like Oden, Kevin Durant was added to USA Basketball's men's national team Wednesday.
But it hasn't always been fame and glory for Kevin Durant. At the beginning of his basketball life, in an elementary school in Suitland, Md., he was tall but not outstanding or even noteworthy.
"When we first started, he wasn't that good," Wyatt said. "He had to work at it. Everything you see in Kevin is because of his hard work. He lived in the gym."
Brown saw the gangly Kevin Durant and put him at center for one season, then began to transform him into one of the most versatile players to arrive on the cusp of NBA stardom.
That winter and for every year until high school, Brown put Kevin Durant through a basketball boot camp after school. Kevin Durant did his homework in the study room, his grandmother brought him dinner, and he napped behind a curtain in the gym. In the remaining hours, until well after dark, they worked on shooting, passing and dribbling skills.
Kevin Durant spent nine or 10 hours a day practicing, both in the rec center and on the outside, eight-hoop court behind the adjacent elementary school. Brown taught him the pull-up jumper, the two-dribble jumper and the baseline drive -- three moves that continue to serve
Kevin Durant ran up and down a nearby hill repeatedly. He would do 1,000 toe raises at a time and 500 pushups. Surrounded by fast-food restaurants, he was more conscious than anyone else about eating a healthy diet. And when Brown gave him a day off, Kevin Durant showed up anyway.
"Honestly, I don't know how I did all of those things when I was younger," Kevin Durant told The Seattle Times. "I just wanted to be great."
Even if he played four games on a Saturday, Kevin Durant would immediately head back to the rec center and lift weights, sometimes until 3 a.m.
Brown did not allow his prodigy to play pickup games for fear that he would pick up bad habits and poor defense. Friends have trouble recalling what Kevin Durant did for fun, other than basketball.
"Kevin was just the one who worked harder than all of us; it's what he really wanted," said Francois Adkins, a teammate of Kevin Durant's through childhood and high school. "We all went to the movies, and he stayed at the gym and practiced. He went to no parties. He was always in basketball. He earned everything he worked for."
Visitors to the Seat Pleasant Activity Center are now greeted by the cover of a college sports magazine featuring Kevin Durant, but the real Kevin Durant is not gone for good.
He frequently returned there, even after high school games. His prep career took him to the National Christian Academy in Fort Washington, Md., for two seasons and then to Oak Hill Academy in Mouth of Wilson, Va., for his junior year.
During a 34-2 season at Oak Hill, the Warriors played in the 2004 Les Schwab Invitational in Hillsboro. Nine quick points by Kevin Durant in the final minutes of a semifinal win over Portland's Jefferson High School propelled Oak Hill to the eventual title. Kevin Durant then moved to Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Md., for his senior season.
Instead of taking the subway to school and back home to Suitland -- and missing two hours of valuable court time -- Kevin Durant spent most nights during the school year at the home of Taishi Ito, now at the University of Portland, where he was a starting point guard as a freshman last season.
Ito, from Mie, Japan, was living with a host family in Rockville. There, Kevin Durant lived on Ito's fried rice and, of course, basketball. On most days, the two were at school by 7 a.m. to get a few shots up before classes started at 8:30. After school, it was more basketball.
Ito, regarded as having the best work ethic at Portland in recent years, and Kevin Durant became good friends.
"Some nights we just talked forever, like two or three hours," Ito said. "Those are the times I miss. We talked about basketball, girls, about life, we just talked forever."
Kevin Durant did pick up a few of the usual high school pastimes, such as catching an occasional movie or hanging out at the mall. Even then, as a growing basketball legend, he was approached for autographs.
"He would say, 'I'm nobody, I don't know why people want my signature,' " Ito said.
The next season, he was at Texas, playing for coach Rick Barnes and becoming very much a somebody. His one season, which ended with a second-round loss in the NCAA Tournament at Spokane Arena, left an indelible mark on Barnes.
"He's special -- really, really, really special," Barnes said. "He really, truly has a great respect for the integrity of the game. He loves it. He really wants to get better and better, he wants to be coached."
Even after the loss in Spokane, 87-68 to USC, Kevin Durant was rumored to have been seen practicing in the arena three hours later.
Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard doesn't doubt the rumor.
"He loves basketball, and not only that, he wants to be great," Pritchard said. "We've done our homework on both guys (Kevin Durant and Oden), and we eliminate players early if they don't fit our character and culture, and both of these guys fit."
Oden is the center with talent who comes along only so often. Entering the draft, Oden has been compared to Patrick Ewing coming out of Georgetown or Hakeem Olajuwon out of Houston.
It's hard to compare Kevin Durant to anyone. It's more telling to compare him to the nondescript young player he was before years of tireless work.
"There's nowhere inside the lines he can't play -- he scored just about every way possible you can score," Barnes said. "He's unique, I'm telling you."
Jeff Kosseff of The Oregonian staff contributed reporting from suburban Washington, D.C., and Jason Quick of The Oregonian staff contributed reporting from Portland.
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