LUCKY SEVEN
Durant, who was on
crutches for weeks after
his injury, chose to
wear No. 7 for the Nets
because it represents
completion in the
Bible (God rested on
the seventh day, after
creating Heaven
and Earth). Nike jersey
and shorts.
89This morning, however, the only plan he cares about is the rehab plan.
He’s laser focused on this laser. Somehow he even tunes out the blar-
ing big-screen TV across the room. While his friends stretch out on big
leather couches, watching White Boy Rick, discussing the plot twists,
Durant stretches out on the table, subdued, quiet. This is the flip side of
his hatred for the NBA: an almost pious devotion to the game itself and
anything that can help him play it at the highest level.
“Without basketball,” he says flatly, “I wouldn’t have done much on
earth.” Wouldn’t have traveled the world, or met politicians, entrepre-
neurs, moguls, rappers, each of whom adds to his store of knowledge and
advances his search. “I wouldn’t have seen stuff that I’ve seen, compared
to my friends I grew up with. Wouldn’t have gone to India. Or Hawaii.”
His words are suddenly punctuated by bone-shuddering gunshots
in surround sound. Someone in White Boy Rick’s world is never going
to Mumbai.
The physical therapist, Dave Hancock, cuts the laser, repositions
Durant. He rubs around the eight-inch surgical scar on the back of
Durant’s calf, kneading the soft tissue to increase blood flow and improve
collagen formation. He then manipulates other muscles and tendons in
the lower leg to keep them engaged and energized.
Next, Hancock slips Durant’s leg into a boot and sends him outside,
into a walled backyard. On metal crutches that look like medieval joust-
ing lances, Durant does a circuit, paces before an outdoor bar decorated
with the logo of his new team. Just shy of 7 feet, without a shred of fat, he
always traverses earth differently from other humans. (“You can feel his
height,” Grazer says.) But with crutches and a boot, his halting-flowing
stride is a jarring mix of fragility and athletic grace. Like a baby deer per-
forming the Martha Graham technique.
After the gingerly constitutional it’s time to slide into the infinity
pool for one-minute cardio bursts. The infinity pool overlooks...infin-
ity. Durant, however, shows no interest in the view. After easing into the
silver-blue water he begins kicking, paddling, maneuvering a rubber ball.
When he flags, Hancock nudges. Again. The 45-minute regimen leaves
them both gasping.
Hancock hands Durant a basketball (black, Nets logo) and tells him to
shoot. The hoop is at the far end of the pool. Floating backward, stand-
ing flamingo-style, talking, not talking, looking, not looking, no matter:
Swish. Swish. Swish.
Grazer says he once asked Durant what it’s like to choke in a big game.
I’ve never choked, Durant said. Everyone chokes, Grazer said. “[Durant]
says, ‘I will always shoot the ball—choking is not shooting the ball. If I
miss, it’s not my fault. It’s the environment. Or someone else’s fault.’ At
first that sounded arrogant. But if you think about it, it makes sense.
Choking is not shooting.”
Cardio over, summer sun directly overhead, Durant moves into the
dark coolness of the house. A chef brings him a plate. Crispy black cod,
parsnip-and-potato purée, chanterelle mushrooms, roasted fennel, fol-
lowed by crème brûlée topped with fresh whipped cream and sliced
strawberries. Durant takes two bites, sets the plate aside. He burrows
into the couch recently abandoned by his friends. He has only a short time
to rest and regroup. This morning’s regimen will be followed by another
this afternoon. Two sessions, every day except Sunday, all summer.
Another athlete might complain about the monotony, says Hancock,
who’s worked privately with Odell Beckham Jr., David Beckham, Daniel
Craig, U2. But Durant attacks it with an all-consuming fire, which
Hancock calls the hallmark of an elite athlete.
In fact, for Durant, rehab began nanoseconds after the injury. He heard
the tendon pop, felt the leg turn to lead, knew exactly what lay ahead.
He stayed cool, collected, even back in the locker room, surrounded by
teammates and executives looking like mourners at his wake. Only when
doctors started talking blood clots and other bad outcomes did Durant’s
mind go “to a crazy place.”
His phone went crazy too. Calls and texts from everywhere. (Barack
Obama: Speedy recovery.) Among the first was his mother, Wanda Durant,
whom he immortalized as “the real MVP” in his 2014 MVP acceptance
speech. She was watching the game at home in Maryland, in the houseS
OME DAYS I HATE THE NBA,” Kevin Durant says wearily.
He’s facedown on a padded table, wearing dark workout
shorts, a weathered gray DMX T-shirt, a Washington Redskins
fleece draped over his shoulders. A physical therapist leans
over him, wafting circulation-boosting lasers up and down
his surgically repaired right calf.
“Some days I hate the circus of the NBA,” he says. “Some days I hate
that the players let the NBA business, the fame that comes with the busi-
ness, alter their minds about the game. Sometimes I don’t like being
around the executives and politics that come with it. I hate that.”
Since June 10, when Durant crumpled to the floor with a ruptured
Achilles, halting Game 5 of the NBA Finals and casting a pall over the rest
of the series, it’s been The Question: Will the two-time Finals MVP, 2014
league MVP, four-time scoring leader, ever be the same? But listen to him
for just a few minutes: He won’t. He’s already a different person.
The change is more than cosmetic, more than simply leaving the
Golden State Warriors and signing a four-year $164 million deal with the
Brooklyn Nets. It’s more than dropping his longtime number, 35, which
possessed enormous symbolism. (A beloved youth coach and mentor was
shot and killed at 35 years old.) The change feels elemental, as if Durant’s
brush with basketball mortality made him see how fast it all might go
away, how fast it will go away (he turns 31 this month), and it scared him,
or matured him, or made him think.
And he was already a thinker. “I’ve always been on a search,” he says.
Producer Brian Grazer, a creative partner, says Durant is one of the
most original, idiosyncratic minds you’re likely to meet in the world of
sports. Grazer recalls a talk Durant gave at a Google retreat in Sicily.
During the Q&A someone asked what made Durant so great. Coolly,
Durant replied: “Paranoia.”
But all this is guesswork, and Durant hates the way people are forever
guessing about his psyche, which is another reason he hates the NBA. So
here’s another guess: Maybe he’s not changed, or not merely changed—
maybe he’s a lso dead tired. He sounds tired, looks tired, w ith good reason.
His 12-year NBA career has featured outsize doses of drama, scandal, inju-
ries, gutting losses, fierce beefs, dramatic exits, emotional returns, burner
accounts. Even his most devoted fans (Mom and Dad) say the ruptured
Achilles and the yearlong layoff it will likely require might be a blessing.
In every sense of the word, the man needs to heal.
The healing starts here, in this $24 million neo-brutalist mansion
nailed to the side of a cliff above Beverly Hills. Level with the tops of the
Santa Monica Mountains, eye-to-eye with the raptors that surf the swirly
updrafts, this will be the setting for Phase One
of Durant’s rebuild.
In some ways the place is mega-normal, just
another stately pleasure dome of superstardom
(seven bedrooms, 12 bathrooms; rent: $90,000
a month). But at moments there’s a weird vibe.
The house feels like a chrysalis, or a crypt,
depending on your point of view, and not simply
because the front door is a giant sliding slab of
stone. Whatever comes next for Durant—a com-
promised skill set, a comeback for the ages—it
will be determined largely by what happens
within these concrete walls, inside these unac-
countably dark rooms, and this inescapable
truth can really throw off the feng shui. Even
the man installing the special low-resistance treadmill in the living room
looks a little tense.
Team Durant’s plan is for him to hole up here all summer, then transi-
tion to his new home in New York City soon after Labor Day. He’s flying
east tonight to look at a few places. Friends have urged him to consider
Manhattan, but Dumbo, he thinks, might be more his speed. He wants
high ceilings, a sick view, proximity to the Nets practice gym. He lives for
a gym, prides himself on rolling out of bed straight into practice. “I don’t
wear matching clothes...I don’t wash my face, I don’t brush my hair. I just
come in there and go to work.” “WITHOUT
BASKETBALL I
WOULDN’T HAVE
DONE MUCH
ON EARTH.... I
WOULDN’T HAVE
SEEN STUFF
THAT I’VE SEEN.”
–KEVIN DURANT