HEAD SPACE
“We talk about mental
health a lot,” Durant
says. “We only talk
about it when it comes to
players. We need to talk
about it when it comes
to executives, media,
fans.” Nike jersey and
shorts. Hair, Eric Adams;
grooming, Tasha Reiko
Brown; manicure, Ashlie
Johnson. For details see
Sources, page 134.
97Though he can sound stressed when discussing this stuff, though he can
look downhearted, beard askew, doleful eyes fixed on the ground, Durant
wants people to know he’s happy. More, he wants them to please for the love
of God stop asking if he’s happy.
Maybe it’s a function of his introversion. Maybe it’s his resting facial
expression, which is that of a man who just found a parking ticket on his
windshield. Whatever the reason, observers often think Durant is bummed,
or numb, when in fact he’s just pleasantly idling in neutral. “People are
always like, Are you happy? It’s like, Yo, what
the f— does that mean right now?... That was
the whole thing this year: Is KD happy where
he is?”
Such a highly personal question, he com-
plains. More, an unanswerable question.
And whenever he tries to answer it, ear-
nestly, honestly, no one’s satisfied, which
makes them unhappy, which then makes
him unhappy.
Indeed, right after he announced his deal
with Brooklyn, a typical story dominated one
or two news cycles. Warriors execs, behind
the scenes, supposedly saying Durant wasn’t
happy enough after winning two titles: Nothing’s good enough for this guy.
False, Durant says. “It’s very rare in our lives when we envision and
picture something and it comes together the perfect way you envision it.
[Winning a title] was the only time in my life that happened, and that sum-
mer was the most exhilarating time. Every day I woke up I just felt so good
about myself, so good about life.... That was a defining moment in my life—
not just my basketball life.”
This is the one thing that doesn’t change about Durant. He still tries
earnestly, honestly to correct the record, give real answers, put the truth
out there. He doesn’t measure his words, doesn’t care if he says it wrong or
contradicts himself. (Case in point: He’s spoken forgivingly about Oklahoma
City in the past. But he’s not feeling that right now, and he’s not the least bit
concerned if the paradox throws you.)
What matters more than continuity, more than happiness, more than
titles—more than anything—is the search. Durant is one of the few NBA
players who speaks of the game as a vehicle for gaining wisdom. T
HE RAPPER Q-TIP recently sent Durant an old black-and-white
clip of Bruce Lee, which Durant devoured. Lee put it so beau-
tifully, telling an interviewer about the secret of martial arts.
“All types of knowledge,” Lee says, “ultimately mean self-
knowledge.” The more you know about martial arts, the more
you know about yourself, and the more you can then express
yourself with your body—especially in “combat.” On any given night he has
things to express. Angry things, scary things, joyful things, about his story.
He grew up in the roughest parts of Prince George’s County, Maryland.
No money, no father. Lost a cherished aunt and a coach at a tender age. Lost
friends to gun violence. Survived a bare, lonely two-room apartment, just
his mom and brother, and now inhabits this ridiculous American schloss.
Every step of that remarkable journey has left a mark, reshaped his soul. He
wants to tell you how, wants to tell the world, and he does so with his beauti-
ful game, a sui generis hybrid of length and strength, violence and accuracy
and grace.
Laurene Powell Jobs, who helped Durant establish a multimillion-dol-
lar program in Prince George’s County to help college-bound kids ready
themselves—scholastically, emotionally, financially—says Durant is “a
deeply integrated individual,” which makes him rare among all people, let
alone celebrities. Integrated people, she says, “keep all the knowledge of
their experience and bring it to their current awareness.... They use it as a
source of knowledge, of power, and want to effect change that’s informed by
their experience.”
If basketball isn’t available, Durant finds expression through other
means. Photography, music, art. He dabbles, or dives deep, depending. But
he’s discovered a true passion for business. He seeks out founders, leaders,CEOs and applies what he learns from them to the empire he’s building with
Kleiman. Under the rubric of 35 Ventures—headquartered in New York City,
staff of 15—they manage Durant’s lucrative endorsement deals, oversee
an equity partnership with luxury audio company Master & Dynamic and
create an eclectic investment portfolio (technology, hospitality, media) tai-
lored to their shared interests.
They also generate a lot of content. Just this year they produced a docu-
mentary about the San Quentin Warriors, a hoops team inside the maximum
security prison; launched a six-episode series on ESPN called The Boardroom
about the business of sports, along with related digital shorts; and began
filming a scripted show called Swagger, loosely based on Durant’s days play-
ing youth basketball, with Grazer as a co-producer.
Through the Kevin Durant Charity Foundation they also help groups that
take innovative approaches to fighting homelessness and easing hunger,
and they do dazzling refurbishments of basketball courts in low-income
neighborhoods around the world.
Above all, Durant expresses himself through social media. Instagram
is one of his main portals to the world. It’s an introvert’s utopia, he says, a
place to engage with people from a safe distance. Never mind the grief it’s
caused him in the past. (In recent years, at times using fake accounts, he’s
clashed with online critics, including at least one who still had a curfew.)
He checks his direct messages twice daily, and though they number in the
hundreds, he methodically works his way through, chatting with all sorts of
folks about all sorts of subjects. Recently he conducted a two-week-long dia-
logue with a total stranger, a young man who detailed his many struggles
and mental woes, ad nauseam, all of which Durant found fascinating.
He’ll also talk shop with anyone. The other day a middle school student
reached out. “She’s like, I started to play at the free throw line, but I’m not
very comfortable there, so I don’t really know what to do when I get inside
the zone. It was such a nice-ass question. She blew my mind.”
He often parachutes into young people’s comments, doles out praise,
congratulates them on a great game, a big win, “just encouraging them,
letting them know they’re nice, and keep going. That shit does a lot for me.
That’s why I like the Gram. A lot of young grass-roots basketball players, I
build relationships through Instagram, so when we see each other it’s love.”
He recalls having a drink with E-40, rapper, philosopher, who claims
authorship of several everyday phrases, including “You feel me?” E-40 made
a toast: I’m not above you, I’m not below you—I’m right beside you. “I’m like,
That’s the approach I take with everybody!”
Maybe that utopian vision of the world will now come true. Maybe
Durant’s unfiltered dialogue with humanity will reach new levels of inti-
macy and respect and mutual understanding. Just as the injury changed
Durant, or accelerated changes already in process, maybe it will alter public
perception. The knocks—that he was soft, that introvert was a fancy word
for selfish—seemed to evaporate the moment he gave up his body for Golden
State. Starting Game 5 with a strained calf, risking and then incurring cata-
strophic injury, seemed to instantly restore the hero status he enjoyed early
in his career.
Or maybe the machine has other plans for his narrative.
It’s almost time for the afternoon session with Hancock. First, though,
a quick interview with a film crew making a documentary about basketball
in Prince George’s County. Time suddenly seems like the infinity pool. No
edges, no horizon. Talking about the past, working on the future, hobbled in
an uncertain present.
Durant says he’s decided to wear No. 7 in Brooklyn because it stands
for completion in the Bible. (God rested on the seventh day after creating
Heaven and Earth.) Clearly the completion of his career is on his mind. In
which case, what next?
Kids, he says, maybe.
How many?
He throws out numbers. Maybe five. Maybe one.
First he needs to find a woman who can handle this crazy life.
He u sed to t h i n k t h at wa sn’t suc h a ta l l order. B ut, a s w it h so m a ny t h i n gs,
his thinking on that has evolved.
“I thought this life was pretty simple,” he says. “But it’s not as simple as
I thought it was.” “PEOPLE ARE
ALWAYS LIKE, ARE
YOU HAPPY? THAT
WAS THE WHOLE
THING THIS YEAR:
IS KD HAPPY
WHERE HE IS?”
–DURANT