KEVIN DURANT HAS SEEN THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS. The ones where he drains so many threes the crowd rushes the court to touch the hem of his garment. The ones where his step-backs and crossovers turn defenders into extras from The Walking Dead. The ones where, with his Bambi gait, he shuts down more crap than Congress. The ones where he out-LeBrons LeBron. On his extended summer vacation, Durant took his game to the playground courts of LA, DC and NYC. The highlights became the “Lazy Sunday” of the lockout. On them, freed from the formality of the NBA, Durant plays with frivolity. Nothing is at stake. The game is just the game. And he is just a kid, standing on the court, letting the crowd love him.

DURANT RAINED 48 POINTS at the CP3 Foundation All-Star Game in early October. Scored 50 a week later at the Drew vs. Goodman rematch. In one now-legendary August game at Harlem’s Rucker Park, he dropped 66 points, his shots falling hard like a fat lady’s pants. There were more than 150 clips of the game on YouTube.

By mid-October, the most popular one, Kevin Durant Catches Fire in Harlem, had 3.2 million views. To watch it is to witness a crowd growing incredulous, then delirious. To watch it is to see a man having a moment.

It’s a month after the videos first began circulating, and Durant is eating wings at Hooters. He does not register the orange-and-tan waitresses or their tank tops. His eyes are fixed on flat screens and football. “This summer?” he asks, wrinkling his forehead. “All I was doing was hooping. I didn’t feel any different. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t done before.”

When told that the word going around the hoops world is that the games prove he’s finally grown up, that baby Durant has at long last become a man, that he’ll emerge from the lockout as the league’s new alpha male and claim a fistful of rings for his long-suffering franchise, he scoffs. “I did it because I wanted to play,” he says. “Simple.”

At 23, Durant looks both older and younger than he is. His face still stubbornly holds on to its round-cheeked boyishness, a teenage Jamie Foxx. But his eyes seem from another, darker time — wiser, more resigned. Durant insists that the player people swooned over on the playground is the same player who dons the royal-blue Thunder uniform. He figures that the lockout just left people hungry, that a saltine tastes like steak to a starving man.

“I felt like I was just being me,” he says, swallowing a fried cheese stick. His pickup games were not, he stresses, about PR, nor were they about staying in the lockout limelight. “I was actually surprised by the attention it got,” he says with some chagrin. “I wasn’t doing it to get noticed.”

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By Michael Lee

About an hour before the most star-studded summer league game tipped off at Morgan State’s Hill Field House, I spotted Goodman League commissioner and master of ceremony for the night, Miles Rawls, and asked him about when his team was going to have a rematch against the Drew League in Los Angeles. Rawls again mentioned that they are looking at getting together on Sept. 25, but added that the Drew League is still trying to get Kobe Bryant involved in some way.

“K.D. wants Kobe, doesn’t he,” I asked Rawls, since District native Kevin Durant had already told Brandon Jennings the night before on Twitter that he wanted to see Bryant playing for the Drew League the next time the teams square off.

Rawls nodded and said, “You know K.D. ain’t ducking nobody.”

Rawls words would prove to be on point later in the evening, as the late-arriving Durant eagerly accepted the challenge of being the lone all-star for the Goodman League against the all-star trio of LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul that led the Melo League.

“Playing against those guys was a lot of fun for me. I’m excited I got that opportunity playing against some great players, playing with some great players as well,” Durant said after his team lost, 149-141, in a game that was lopsided until the final five minutes.

Durant was aided by NBA players Jeff Green, Trevor Austin Daye, Roger Mason Jr., and Jarrett Jack, but the matchup against the Melo All-Stars was incredibly unfair — especially with DeMarcus Cousins and Jennings failing to appear, for some reason, placing more pressure on Durant. The Melo all-stars also had the high-flying Eric Bledsoe and Josh Selby, and the sharp-shooting Gary Neal to carry the load when the Big Three wasn’t lighting up the scoreboard.

Durant scored 59 points, but for most of the night, it felt like watching the Eastern Conference Finals, when James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh combined to make Derrick Rose resemble a helpless one-way show. Rawls mentioned during the third quarter that Durant was “doing everything but cleaning the floor” but he couldn’t outscore James, Paul and Anthony all alone.

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There’s an old adage that says ball players want to be rappers and rappers want to be ball players. But what happens when a ball player utilizes the grassroots initiatives most notably seen in Hip-Hop? Since the Finals ended and the draft subsided, the words “good news” and “NBA” have become the sports world’s version of oil and water. Still, Kevin Durant seems to be making lemonade out of the lemons David Stern and Billy Hunter are handing the rest of the world while creating an entirely new image for himself in the process.

Think back to the summer of 2006 and what was then known about Lil Wayne. A star indeed who was on the heels of his critically acclaimed Tha Carter II, Wayne had yet to truly crack the seal as a crossover superstar; he wasn’t even invited to the Grammys. What surfaced over the next few months was an onslaught of material that ultimately defines his legacy to this day. Wayne released a mind-blistering number of features and mixtapes including I Can’t Feel My Face, Da Drought 3 and, most notably, Dedication 2. The momentum and work ethic eventually propelled him into what would become his most successful album to date, the Grammy award winning Tha Carter III.

This brings us back to Kevin Durant, who happens to regularly speak about music on his @KDTrey5 Twitter page and even appeared on Wale’s More About Nothing mixtape. Already widely considered a top five player in the league, and the world’s best scorer, KD’s visibility still trailed behind the likes of Kobe Byrant, LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. What a difference one summer can make. Durant seems to have adopted Hip Hop’s method of creating a buzz by releasing a maelstrom of viral videos that show him touring the world and hooping at different spots forming a genuine frenzy around his name. He’s not just a superstar seen on TV for a few months out of the year anymore. This guy could literally show up in your city, ball at your court and blend right in. As fans, we appreciate stuff like that. We love it, actually.

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Kevin Durant never had the latest and most expensive shoes when he was growing up. And he’s hasn’t forgotten that about what that was like.

Durant remembers having three pairs of shoes when he was a teenager and having one pair that he wore all around Seat Pleasant, Md.

“We couldn’t afford the Pennys, the Pippens, the Jordans,” Durant told The Oklahoman on Thursday. “I had one pair of Team Jordan’s, and I wore them everywhere. I hooped in them, played football in them. I had some Shaqs from K-Mart and a pair of Tim Duncans. But I couldn’t get a bunch of different ones like I wanted.”

Durant’s memory of not being able to have the shoes he wanted had a big impact when it came time to price his own line of shoes.

While NBA stars like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James have shoe lines that cost around $150, Durant offers his Nike KD line at $88. His shoe has become one of the most popular on the market.

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Story excerpt from DailyThunder.com

WASHINGTON DC — I grew up in Oklahoma, and now I live and work in Washington, DC. I also happen to have been roommates with Royce during our formative years in Norman. So naturally, when I heard that Kevin Durant occasionally plays summer league ball in DC, I took it as my moral duty to find out the details and attend.

After learning from twitter (@Inside_da_Gates) that KD would be playing in DC this week, I was able to clock out of work a bit early yesterday and attend last night’s session (Tuesday, June 7) of the George Goodman Basketball League. If you do not know, the Goodman League is a summer basketball league in the southeast Washington D.C. neighborhood of Anacostia/Barry Farms (to learn more about the league and its history – it is sponsored by Nike and is regularly billed as one of the nation’s top spots for summer ball – check out their website).

I arrived to the Barry Farms neighborhood around 6:50 p.m. (it’s a 4 minute walk, at most, from the Anacostia metro station), just in time to catch the tipoff of the first game – but there was no sign of KD. The scene was what you would imagine for a high intensity summer league – good basketball players, a standing room only crowd inside the caged basketball court, Gatorade and bottled water available for $2 a bottle, and a DJ spinning great music (opening song was the full length version of Rick James’ “Mary Jane”). In addition, the best part of the Goodman League is Commissioner Miles Rawls, who commentates on the games over a PA in real time.

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By Michael Lee, Washington Post

Oklahoma City — Moments after taking ownership for having “let the city down” in the Oklahoma City Thunder’s disastrous loss in Monday’s Game 4 against Dallas, Kevin Durant walked back onto the court, his head held high, and quickly hugged his grandmother, Barbara Davis, and then his mother. Before Durant could sneak away, Wanda Pratt brought her son in closer and whispered into his left ear: “Don’t put this all on yourself. Keep playing. Keep being you.”

Durant nodded without saying a word, then walked away, hands clinging to the straps of his backpack, without acknowledging his father, Wayne Pratt, his brother, Tony, his representatives, Aaron and Eric Goodwin, and other close friends and associates. His season would officially end two nights later in Dallas.

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Though she’s often seen dancing at Thunder games, sometimes Kevin Durant’s mom, Wanda Pratt, feels the playoff pressure too.

OKLAHOMA CITY — The situation was tense and couldn’t have been bigger.

Kevin Durant, the focus of more than 18,000 fans in Oklahoma City Arena and millions more on national TV, was concentrating during the critical fourth quarter of Game 7 of the second round of the NBA playoffs.

His team wins, and it advances in the playoffs. Lose, and the season is over.

“The biggest game of my life,” Durant said. “I was focused. I promise, I was locked in.”

Then he saw his mom in the arena and laughed.

Across the court, but clearly in another world, Durant’s mother, Wanda Pratt, was dancing. Her moves were captured for all to see on the giant video screen, and even her superstar son couldn’t help but smile.

“It relaxed me,” he said. “She’s been doing that my whole life.”

Durant and the Thunder went on to win the game against Memphis and now are in the Western Conference finals, facing Dallas for the right to play for the NBA title. The tension is back for Durant and his teammates, who are down 3-1 to the Mavericks with Game 5 tonight in Dallas.

Durant takes things in comfortable stride, from playing the game to dealing with fans, teammates and the media, thanks to his mom.

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If the Oklahoma City Thunder can’t beat the Dallas Mavericks Wednesday night, it will be knocked out of the NBA’s Western Conference Finals. A loss also would end a compelling run by one of the postseason’s most improbable stars.

We’re referring, of course, to Kevin Durant’s backpack.

Durant, Oklahoma City’s standout forward, created a phenomenon when he began wearing his knapsack to postgame press conferences this month. Not only does Durant fasten the backpack’s straps around his chest, he also has a habit of buttoning his shirt all the way to the very top—nerd chic at its most blatant. The clean-cut Durant looks more like an eighth-grader shuffling his way to social studies than a 22-year-old multimillionaire who led the league in scoring.

Durant has said this was never about making a fashion statement. He simply wanted to be able to make a quick escape to the team bus after meeting with the media—and to have easy access to his Bible, which he carries with him.

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From Darren Rovell, CNBC.com

Kevin Durant fans seemed to be up in arms with me on Twitter when I said that I thought the Oklahoma City Thunder forward needed a bit more personality to be more marketable.

Durant does have deals with Nike, Gatorade, Panini, EA Sports, Skullcandy headphones and Degree Men, but I thought the small market and a reserved demeanor didn’t exactly make him stand out besides his amazing on the court performance, that is.

Instead of just guessing, I asked two polling services to tell me what their polls revealed about Durant.

I was surprised.

The Davie-Brown Index (DBI) shows that Durant’s best attribute is endorsement. He’s ranked No. 389 out of the nearly 2,800 celebrities in their database. Those polled consider Durant’s endorsement to be as good as an endorsement by Stephen Colbert, Jack Nicklaus or Will Ferrell. DBI data reflects that his endorsement means more to fans than anyone in the NBA, except for Shaquille O’Neal, Dwyane Wade and Dwight Howard.

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OKLAHOMA CITY – Kevin Durant(notes) ran a brush over his head one last time then pulled the straps tight on his backpack. This was a new selection from Durant’s apparently vast collection of book bags – gray with the initials “K.D.” printed on the back – and teammate Eric Maynor(notes) was needling him about its contents. Two pairs of pants and one pair of Gucci shoes was Maynor’s guess.

Durant smiled, but offered no confirmation. “I always gotta have my backpack,” he said before walking out the locker room doors. Watching Durant in moments like this – long-sleeved shirt buttoned to his chin, book bag strapped to his back – it’s easy to wonder:

Is he going to the Western Conference finals or social studies class?

This is part of Durant’s charm. He’s the assassin who walks away from his kill sipping a carton of chocolate milk. He’d just scored 39 points to end the Memphis Grizzlies’ season in a Game 7 performance so smooth he probably didn’t need a shower … and 30 minutes later he’s dressed like a sixth-grader.

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