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.
Tyler Hatch!!!!!!!
@justin
I was really hoping we could do some sort of S&T with Milwaukee for Ilyasova when he first decided to come back to the NBA. He looked like a horror movie villain early last season when he was wearing his Rip Hamilton mask.
@Patrick
Epic game.
Here's my favorite Durant memory, makes me wonder why Dove never got a chance in the NBA:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=270160197
Ooops. Typo above. Meant Aldridge not Aldrich.
@Joe
That would be a strong team. And fun to watch too...if your not a Thunder fan ;)
One of my favorite memories of KD before he became a part of the organization was when he was up in Portland for a pre-draft workout, nobody still knew who Portland was going to pick, and Coach Nate said that Kevin had the strongest workout he'd ever seen....period!
Can you imagine that Portland team with Roy, Durant and Aldrich? It would be good.
@Cpt. C-Note
It kinda sounds like coach K wants to take Russia behind the woodshed.
btw...
I wonder how many players on this Russian team will be here(besides Sasha Kahn) for the Moscow @ Thunder preseason match-up?
@Floppy Punch!
Yeah! That was pretty sweet!
"...He's Russian now. He probably sees a lot clearer with no tears in his eyes..."
...Classic...
If you have read about Durant and Taras Brown, you should
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/MYSA022607_durant_136509ab_html37814.html?c=y&page=1#storytop
Hilarious! Did anyone else hear Krzyzewski's comments about the Russian basketball coach in the ESPN clip "Team USA Preparing For Russia" in the sidebar?
@Mark!
and the guy actually gets rebounds
Just a better shooter and more aggressive.
@justin
Ilyasova reminds me of Jeff Green sometimes.
I like Jerebko over Ilyasova - the Swede seems to have more energy.
Sammy :Every time I see Ilyasova play, I get wistful. He’s basically what Jeff Green wants to be.
I wanted to say that but refrained!
Every time I see Ilyasova play, I get wistful. He's basically what Jeff Green wants to be.
@justin
Me too.
I love Ersan Ilyasova.
4razr :I was struggling as I lay sleepless last night to come up with a comp for Ibaka. Then it hit me: Chris Wilcox with a work ethic.
Interesting. I think Wilcox was more skilled as an offensive player, he had some decent moves he was just really lazy. He also never cared about defense.
I like the obvious Tyrus Thomas comparison. Serge seems to have a very nice work ethic though like you said so I think he'll get more development in than TT has.
I was struggling as I lay sleepless last night to come up with a comp for Ibaka. Then it hit me: Chris Wilcox with a work ethic.
The first thing I noticed about Durant was his skill level--not talent, but polish that comes from repetition and practice. The only way to achieve that level of skill is through hard work. I knew right then, a guy who is this talented and physically gifted who is this driven is going to be amazing.