Kevin Durant
Kevin Durant was named a starter on the 2012 Western Conference All-Star team after receiving 1,345,566 votes, second most in the Western Conference, the NBA announced today.
This will mark KD’s third career All-Star appearance and his second as a starter. During last year’s game played at STAPLES Center in Los Angeles, KD was the game’s second leading scorer after recording 34 points to go along with three rebounds and two assists in 30 minutes.
This season, KD has helped lead the Thunder to a NBA-best 17-4 record while averaging 26.6 points (3rd in the NBA), a team-high 8.1 rebounds and 3.1 assists in 37.1 minutes. Through the first six weeks of the season, Durant has recorded eight double-doubles and he became the first player in franchise history to open the season with four consecutive 30-point scoring efforts.
The 2012 NBA All-Star Game, which will air live at 8 p.m. ET on TNT and ESPN Radio in the U.S., and reach fans in more than 200 countries and territories in more than 40 languages, will be played at Amway Center in Orlando ““ on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2012.
Category : Blog
OKLAHOMA CITY “” Kevin Durant wasn’t sure at first that he wanted to be a movie star and a basketball star.
It took some peer pressure and some encouragement from his mother, but now Durant is bringing Hollywood to Oklahoma City for a few days. The two-time NBA scoring champion filmed scenes from the upcoming movie “Thunderstruck” Tuesday at the team’s home arena, including the pivotal sequence when his basketball skills are magically switched with a clumsy teenager to throw the Thunder’s playoff hopes into question.
Durant plays himself in the movie. Nickelodeon star Taylor Gray misses a halfcourt shot so badly that it hits Oklahoma City’s mascot, Rumble, in the arena tunnel and he tracks down the ball at the same time as Durant. He says he wishes he could play as well as Durant, and the Thunder superstar says he wishes he could help.
The wish magically gets granted, with the downside being that Durant suddenly has the skills of a kid who couldn’t make his own high school basketball team.
“It was pretty cool. I’m going to be nervous about how people view the movie and how they think my performance was,” Durant said. “I really don’t care now. I did it, it was fun, I enjoyed myself, I made some friends along the way, so I think it was a success.”
Category : Blog
Check out KD in this new Nike #MakeitCount spot. Nike+ has something big planned on 1.19.12. Make sure to stay tuned for the announcement.
Category : Blog
Normally everyone forgets about tragedies a few weeks or months after they happen. Not so with this group.
Despite it being two full years since the 7.0 magnitude earthquake leveled the capital city of Port-au-Prince, more than 40 high profile personalities will use their Twitter and Facebook accounts this Thursday, the 12th, to rekindle interest in helping Haiti.
The lineup, which includes Maroon 5, Sting, Alicia Keys, Lady Antebellum, Hugh Jackman, Sheryl Crow, Tim McGraw, Martha Stewart, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Don Cheadle, Deepak Chopra and NBA stars Kevin Durant, Paul Pierce, Blake Griffin, and Chris Paul, has a combined total of 125 million social media followers.
“Before the earthquake, Haiti was already the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere,” explains Hunter Payne, producer of the campaign and President of Aid Still Required. “The last thing it needed was a disaster.”
The earthquake exacerbated ever-worsening conditions on the island. The number of orphaned and abandoned children has doubled since the quake, the incidence of rape has increased markedly, and Haiti’s floundering education system took a severe hit when schools toppled.
“On our trip there this past summer it was difficult to see much progress,” says Andrea Herz Payne, Chairman and co-founder of Aid Still Required. “At the same time we saw how eager the Haitian people are to improve their situation. There was no way we could come home and forget about them.”
Haiti was once a lush, thriving paradise. A few hundred years ago it provided France with about a third of its domestic product. But after gaining independence from France in 1804, the populace turned to subsistence farming, deforesting the countryside in the process. Today 98% of Haiti is barren, and the resultant flight to the cities has left urban areas impossibly overcrowded.
When the earthquake hit Port-Au-Prince, it destroyed hospitals, air, sea and land transport facilities, and communication systems, and left over a million survivors homeless and hundreds of thousands starving and without proper sanitation or clean drinking water. Today, the people of Haiti continue to live in a state of emergency.
“The usual pattern is for the public to contribute generously in the moment of a disaster and then forget about it,” says Hunter. “But disasters don’t heal themselves ““ they take time, energy and resources over a protracted arc. We hope this campaign will go a long way to engendering this kind of thinking not only about this tragedy but all others as well.”
Proceeds from the campaign are funding reforestation projects, infrastructure and teachers for orphanages, and trauma relief programs for PTSD and rape victims.
Donations – http://aidstillrequired.org/donate
Campaign Sponsor ““ Snoball ““ “˜Empowering change through social giving.’ https://snoball.com/
Contact info@AidStillRequired.org for more information.
Category : Blog
Voting for the 2012 NBA All-Star Game started last week and DeMar DeRozan and Kevin Durant are both on the ballot. You can vote for DeMar and Kevin by texting their last names to 69622 or going to NBA.com/ASB.
Category : Blog
