Daily Thunder reader Xiaoyu Lu was lucky enough to be one of the locals to escort Kevin Durant and James Harden around town. Here’s his account of hanging with two of the Broingtons for a couple of days in China. Also, the picture above is of a gift that was given to KD when he arrived.
Kevin Durant and James Harden just came to China for a tour last week. Fortunately, I was able to be one of the four City Ambassadors of Beijing to show them around here, and my friends did the same thing in Chengdu and Shanghai.
During his tour in China, Durant visited the Forbidden City and the Great Wall in Beijing. The magnificence of the Forbidden City surely surprised Durant and Harden, for they cannot stop saying words like amazing and crazy. And on the Great Wall, Harden kept saying he was scared.
In Chengdu, Durant and Harden went to see some pandas in the zoo and face-mask art in a tea house. In Shanghai, they visited the US Pavilion and China Pavilion EXPO and showed great interest in the pandas. I can see that Durant was quite interested in China, however, due to his busy schedule and great difficulty in understanding a quite different culture, became bored sometimes that he began tweeting along with his Blackberry.
The two really made some impressions. On our first meeting, Kevin Durant, the scoring champion and one superstar astounded me by saying what’s up to me first. Harden’s beard was so distinguishing that I can tell from eight miles away. He was so outgoing that I guess anybody can make a friend of him in five minutes. During the whole trip, they stayed with each other like twins, though already famous, Durant never boasted about himself and responded to every question modestly.
In KD Skills Clinic, a drill in which Durant and Harden needed to take part with other young players from high schools, they made very good examples. They both practiced hard, finish every missed shot and showed great commitment. They never stopped communicating with each other, also encouraging their teammates.
Special thanks to Xiaoyu Lu for the post. He writes at HoopChina and covers the Thunder from there.
@f5alcon
Between Thabo, Serge, and Nenad...they probably know 12+ languages. I'm sure we could find a way to communicate.
@Cpt. C-Note
looks good, i wonder if nenad speaks russian at all
OT...
I think I've decided on the draft picks I think will have the most impact for our team, short and long-term. (If we stay where we are. I don't think Whiteside will be there at 21, but we might move up a few picks or something, so...yeah...)
21. a) Whitside or b) Orton
26. a) Damion James or b) Eric Bledsoe
32. a) Solomon Alabi or b) Jerome Jordan
51. a) Sherron Collins or b) Alexey Shved*
*This Russian guy could be a steal late.
http://www.nbadraft.net/players/alexey-shved
What do ya'll cats think of these possible picks?
Oh btw.. The "OKC" on the cutout's jerseys is how the real away tops should look. "OKC" instead of "Oklahoma City".
Good call China.
Cheers from OKC, friends in China and abroad!
Thanks for being dedicated to The Thunder. I have the luxury of getting to go down the street to the games and I promise to cheer extra hard for those brothers and sisters that couldn't be there in person.
GO THUNDER...WORLDWIDE!!!
A big, friendly "Hello!" to Xiaoyu Lu and other Thunder fans in China. From what I saw, that trip looked amazing. I'm guessing KD and Harden had a blast.
Those cutouts are incredibly funny. The James Harden figure captures his personality in some twisted way. Is that Westbrook and KD driving in the background picture? This needs to be some kind of anime series. Perhaps a they could solve a mystery every week, or maybe combine to form some mega-robot. The boys have cartoon potential!
@J-Mo
they also have Craig Brackens going 18 and Tiny Gallon at like 28... I don't think so
This article, http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ys-mockdraft061510, says that Aldrich will still be available at #21 when we pick. That's just crazy, right?
Krstic probably has too much hair, and for some reason James is a bit cross-eyed, but I still think the whole deal is ace.
Lovely :)
im convinced that they were really in china creating a hybrid harden durant that will go through accelerated aging so that presti can draft him
@Bob
When I first saw his, my first thought was, "Why did they make a B.J. Mullens?"
Thabo isnt white! :D
I bet when Nenad Krstic was growing up in Serbia the last thing he could imagine was Chinese kids making mini cardboard cut out dolls of his likeness.
@thunder tim
He was.
that's awesome. thanks for sharing, Xiaoyu Lu!
I don't think KD was bored when he was on Twitter. He was probably talking about how cool the places were that he was visiting.
Xiaoyu seems to be a really great kid. He's a college student over there and a big fan of the Thunder. He did a preaseason write up for Hoop china before the 08-09 season that was pretty good.
Any chance somebody knows where to get the patterns for those cutouts up there, or a link to the art in the background?
That artwork is excellent. I LOVE it.
I could tell from the videos on KD's blog that he was loving every minute of that trip.