ESPN
With Kevin Durant, it always comes back to basketball, even when he’s filming his first motion picture.
There are lockout casualties — such as the cancellation of 43 preseason games — and there are lockout byproducts, including Durant’s chance to show up on the big screen.
If not for the lockout, “I probably wouldn’t have been in it,” Durant said by phone while on set for the movie “Switch.” “I would have been in Oklahoma City, working out with the guys.
“I’m kind of glad I got this opportunity to do it. I feel comfortable. Everybody’s making me feel comfortable. The only thing I request is I get a chance to go in the gym every morning.”
Durant works out at least two hours per day, getting in some running with members of the LSU basketball team while shooting the Warner Bros. film on campus in Baton Rouge, La. He still sounds more excited talking about basketball than talking about his acting debut.
Durant’s role isn’t a stretch. He’s playing himself, only a version who mysteriously swaps basketball abilities with a dorky teenager. The hardest part might have been a scene that required Durant to miss shots badly after his shooting skills had transferred. (He still swished one while trying his best to brick.)
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Category : Blog
From ESPNLA.com
It goes without saying Tina Thompson is a women’s basketball icon. The WNBA’s all-time leading scorer, she has been a member of the league since the 1997 inaugural season. But she’s also a Los Angeles basketball icon. The Culver City resident was slated to attend Palisades High School, but the desire to play elite basketball prompted a transfer to the famed Morningside High School in Inglewood. (“When I tell you they’re worlds apart,” says Thompson of the schools and the demographics, “they’re worlds apart.”) She enjoyed a storied career — right on the heels of fellow legend Lisa Leslie — after which she graduated as the 1993 California AAA Player of the Year, with over 1,500 points and 1,000 rebounds in her pocket. At USC, teamed with Leslie for one campaign, her four seasons concluded with her as the fourth-leading scorer and third-leading rebounder in Pac-10 history.
Most strikingly, Thompson learned the game as a kid on the courts at Robertson Park in West L.A. For most elite ballers, this process represents a rite of passage rather than a particularly unique step. For a girl, it’s teeth cut the hard way. She first arrived at 10 years old and wasn’t even allowed run in the actual gym for a few years. From there, even more respect had to be earned, whether absorbing the physical play of a man or simply convincing them she was worth guarding. It wasn’t easy, but that experience made Thompson a tougher, confident player by the time she began carving out a place in the record books.
“Who I was as a basketball player happened way before I came to Morningside,” explains Thompson of her years at Robertson Park. “I pretty much knew who I was.”
Category : Blog
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. — The future face of the NBA will be, or had better be “¦ the tall skinny guy walking the mall in flip-flops. He never brings along a posse or a security guard. He usually drives there in a conversion van. He wears gym shorts just in case someone wants to play 5-on-5. His basketball and his high-tops are in the car.
They don’t grow superstars like this anymore. On the team bus, his phone will ring and he’ll say, “Hi Mommy.” His teammate, Royal Ivey, will elbow him and say, “You could be a little smoother with it. Or at least whisper.” But that’s the one of the most revealing parts about him: He hasn’t changed since he was 8 years old.
You’d think leading the NBA in scoring twice by 22 would have gone to his head. You’d think leading Team USA to last summer’s FIBA World Championship would have had him sleeping in. You’d think taking the NBA’s youngest playoff team to the conference semifinals would have lengthened his Q-rating. But half the time on the road, he’s “what’s-his-name.”
He was walking through a Cleveland mall just this past March, along with Ivey and a team employee, when a man rushed up to say, “Kevin Garnett!!!! You’re Garnett, right?”
“I’m Kevin,” he said, politely. “But it’s not Garnett.”
And away walked Kevin Durant, not offended in the least.
The most unpretentious NBA superstar
Something has made him this way. Something has made Durant probably the least pretentious megastar in pro basketball. He’d rather have a key to the gym than a key to the penthouse. It may sound clichéd, but he really is usually first to practice and last to leave. He’s not clamoring to take his talents to South Beach; instead, he just re-upped for five more years with Oklahoma City.
“Oklahoma City’s got a basketball team?” he was asked during another stroll in the mall one day.
“Yeah, we’re relatively new,” he answered
Category : Blog
Editor’s note: You’ve heard that Liz Cambage is tall (6-foot-8, to be exact). And you’ve probably heard that she’s Australian. (Yes, her “Good day, mate” is in perfect form.) But Monday was a day for true discovery: ESPN.com’s Kaitee Daley got to tag along — from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. — with Cambage as she experienced what it was like to be a top pick in the 2011 WNBA draft.
7 p.m. As it turns out, Cambage didn’t leave right away. She is spotted — surrounded by fellow Australians — lying on the floor of a nearby building on the ESPN campus, completely exhausted. When asked if she is OK: “Yes,” Cambage replies with a smile. But she better get used to the frenetic pace. As a member of her group commented, that is what her life is going to be like now. But as the day comes to a close and the players exchange hugs of both pride and relief with their family members, one thing becomes very apparent. Fans have only experienced the beginning of what is sure to be a 2011 WNBA rookie class filled with talent, heart and one fun Aussie.
6:37 p.m. The bus is significantly quieter on the way back to the Crowne Plaza. Maya Moore talks with Carolyn Swords about Five Guys Burgers and Fries. Xavier’s Amber Harris shrinks into her seat to make a phone call. And Stanford’s Kayla Pederson stares stoically at the Hartford skyline. It could be the nerve-wracking, energy-draining day that makes the ride home feel so different. But it could also be the absence of Cambage.
6:36 p.m. Sprinting to catch the bus, I’m informed that Cambage has left in a separate vehicle with her mom and agent. Earlier she told me she hadn’t finished packing. And with the wardrobe and accessories she carts around, a little extra time is needed.
5:50 p.m. Cambage reminds me that her Aussie buddy Rachel Jarry was taken 18th overall by the Atlanta Dream. Though the spotlight has been focused on Moore and Cambage all day long, they both seem genuinely happy for all the other players around them.
Category : Blog
By Rick Reilly
NBA PR flacks keep telling me that Oklahoma City Thunder superstar Kevin Durant is “just like any 22-year-old kid.” They say he does not have a torrid affair going with his wallet or his mirror or his league-stomping 29 points per game. “Perfectly normal,” they insist.
So I called their bluff. I met Durant in Chicago, and I brought along a perfectly normal 23-year-old kid — my son, Jake. We all three met in a hotel lobby and plopped down on a couch.
“Let’s compare lives! Want to?” I said.
Wages: Kevin makes an average of $17 million a year playing for the Thunder, plus $8.5 million a year from Nike.
Jake, a student at Chicago Portfolio School, makes about $5,400 a year as a part-time barista. That’s $8.95 an hour, or about $103,649 an hour less than Kevin. Then again, Kevin doesn’t get tips.
Home: Kevin rents a seven-bedroom, 10,000-square-foot mansion in Oklahoma City with its own theater.
Jake rents half of a 450-square-foot apartment. His bedroom has no closet, so he keeps his clothes on two chairs at the foot of his bed. It’s above a stitch-’em-up medical center. “It’s open 24/7,” Jake says, “for round-the-clock stabbing convenience.”
Cars: Kevin owns a sweet conversion van with TVs, an Xbox, and a pull-out bed. He also has a $128,000 Mercedes S63 AMG and a Maybach, whose price he won’t discuss, though Diddy just bought his 16-year-old son one for $360,000.
Jake takes the bus or walks between home, his job and portfolio school. It’s 20 minutes between all three. It forms a kind of ragged isosceles triangle, as does the hole in his right shoe.
Hopes and dreams: Kevin wants to win an Olympic ring, a mess of NBA rings and more NBA scoring titles.
Category : Blog
