Kevin Durant was a high school basketball star who was drafted second overall in the 2007 NBA draft by the Seattle SuperSonics after only one season of college basketball at the University of Texas.
Durant went on to become a four-time scoring champion for the organization, which was renamed the Oklahoma City Thunder following his Rookie of the Year season, and was named the league’s Most Valuable Player in 2014.
Durant later led the Golden State Warriors to back-to-back NBA titles before joining the Brooklyn Nets in the summer of 2019.
Early Life
Kevin Wayne Durant was born on September 29, 1988, just outside of Washington, D.C., in Suitland, Maryland. Durant grew up as one of four children of Wanda and Wayne Pratt, along with his sister, Brianna, and two brothers, Anthony (also a basketball star) and Rayvonne. Barbara, his grandmother, was a great influence, assuring him that his height was a blessing, despite the fact that his classmates taunted him for always being the tallest in class.
Durant’s career began with the Prince George’s County Jaguars, an Amateur Athletic Union youth basketball team in Prince George’s County, Maryland. During Durant’s tenure, the squad won two national championships. Durant still wears No. 35 in remembrance of Charles Craig, his AAU coach and childhood mentor who died at the age of 35.
Durant grew seven inches in high school, reaching a height of 6’9″. During that time, he played for the National Christian Academy and Montrose Christian School in Maryland, as well as the Virginia basketball powerhouse Oak Hill Academy. Following his senior year, he was named to Parade magazine’s “First Team” list and USA Today’s “First Team All-American” list, attracting the interest of major college basketball recruiters around the country.
College Career at UT
Although he was urged by his friend, point guard Tywon Lawson, to join him and play for the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, Durant chose to sign with the University of Texas Longhorns in Austin. Russell Springman, a Longhorn assistant from Maryland, had known Durant since his freshman year of high school.
Durant started every game as a freshman for the Longhorns, averaging 25.8 points per game (first in the Big 12 and fourth in the US) and 11 rebounds per game in 35 games. He scored 20 or more points 30 times and 30 or more points 11 times. He was voted the Big 12 Tournament’s Most Valuable Player after scoring 92 points and helping the Longhorns to the NCAA Tournament’s second round, where they were defeated by the University of Southern California.
Durant won the Oscar Robertson and Adolph F. Rupp trophies at the end of the season, making him the first freshman to accomplish so.
Oklahoma City All-Star
Durant declared himself eligible for the 2007 NBA Draft after only one year of collegiate basketball. The Seattle SuperSonics selected him second overall in June of that year. Around the same time, Durant agreed to a $60 million, seven-year endorsement agreement with Nike, which was a significant deal at the time, second only to LeBron James’ Nike contract.
The gangly forward exceeded expectations by averaging more than 20 points per game in his rookie season, earning the NBA’s Rookie of the Year Award. The Sonics were later relocated to become the Oklahoma City Thunder, and Durant emerged as the franchise’s new face, earning his first All-Star selection in 2010. That year, he won the first of three consecutive NBA scoring crowns, adding another in his MVP season of 2013-14.
Durant had team success with the up-and-coming Thunder, reaching the NBA finals in 2012 with dynamic point guard Russell Westbrook and James Harden. Oklahoma City fell short of another finals berth in 2016 after a difficult seven-game loss to the Golden State Warriors.
Durant has also competed internationally, and the International Basketball Federation named him the 2010 FIBA World Championship MVP. He was selected to play for the United States basketball team at the 2012 Olympic Games in London, where the Americans won the gold medal. Durant returned for the 2016 Summer Games in Brazil, where he was voted co-USA Basketball Male Athlete of the Year (together with Carmelo Anthony) after leading the team to another gold medal.
NBA Champion with the Golden State Warriors
On July 4, 2016, Durant made big waves in the NBA when he announced that he had agreed to sign with the Warriors. “The primary mandate I had for myself in making this decision was to have it based on the potential for my growth as a player — as that has always steered me in the right direction,” Durant wrote in a post on The Players’ Tribune. “But I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth.”
Durant was chastised for his decision, with some labeling him “soft” for joining an already stacked team, but it proved to be a winning one. In June 2017, he led the Warriors to an NBA finals triumph over LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers, scoring 39 points in Game 5 to secure Golden State’s second title in three years. Durant averaged 35.2 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 5.4 assists per game during the series, earning him Finals MVP honors. “I knew at some point in my life it would come together for me. I just had to keep grinding,” he told the New York Daily News. “I’m at a loss for words.”
Durant demonstrated his leadership the next year when his acclaimed teammate, two-time MVP Stephen Curry, had an MCL sprain late in the season. Durant drove his team through the early stages of the playoffs, and with Curry back to full strength, the Warriors swept the Cavaliers in their repeat of the finals, with Durant winning his second consecutive finals MVP title.
The 2018-19 season was the most difficult of Durant’s Golden State career. In November, an in-game fight between Durant and forward Draymond Green spilled into the locker room, and the squad appeared to lack the killing concentration that it had showed in prior seasons.
Despite losing Durant to a strained calf, the Warriors won the Western Conference with 57 wins, and they defeated the dangerous Houston Rockets in the conference playoffs. However, Durant’s return to the NBA playoffs was a disaster, as he staggered off the court in the second quarter of Game 5 with a ruptured Achilles tendon.
Brooklyn Nets
Although Durant was anticipated to miss the 2019-20 NBA season due to an Achilles injury, the star forward agreed to a four-year contract with the Brooklyn Nets at the start of the 2019 free agency period.
Durant stated that he had tested positive for the coronavirus in March 2020, shortly after the NBA paused its season due to the outbreak.