Lots of kids dream of becoming professional athletes, performing in front of thousands of fans in a stadium and millions at home on TV. As we’ve all seen from those NCAA commercials ad nauseum though, most college athletes will go pro in something other than sports. Think of how many young athletes don’t even get to the college level, and it’ll give you an idea of what a longshot it is to become a pro athlete.
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Looking at Kevin Durant now, it’s difficult to imagine him being anything other than a pro basketball player. KD was born to hoop, and though he’s still going strong in his 18th NBA season, he’s already put together a career that ranks him right alongside the other all-time greats.
Durant appeared on the most recent episode of Not This Again with Bobbi Althoff, and explained that even as a kid, it was basketball or nothing for him.
Althoff asked him what he was going to get a degree in, and he answered honestly, “I had no clue.” Durant spent one year at the University of Texas, and though he said he had a great time in college, he basically majored in basketball. He left and became the second overall pick in the NBA Draft, and the rest is history.
Most people have some kind of backup plan for if they can’t achieve their dreams, but KD was different. When Althoff asked him what he’d be doing if he was really bad at basketball, he said, “That was never in my mind, a thought process of being bad about basketball. But I never thought about anything else.”
“It was a risky decision to choose this, to put all my eggs in one basket and say I’m gonna become an NBA player at like 9,” he continued.
Durant has often spoken about what a positive influence his mom has been on him, most famously during his 2014 MVP acceptance speech when he called her “the real MVP.” On the podcast, he reiterated that she always believed in him, sometimes even more than he believed in himself.
“She would get mad at me if I didn’t feel the way she felt about it,” he said. “She knew.”
Wanda Durant turned out to be a smart lady, and a great mom. Her son has gone on to have a legendary career, picking up a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, two rings and two Finals MVPs, four scoring titles and 11 All-NBA selections. Now with the Rockets, he’s already seamlessly fit in to a team with championship aspirations.
