*This is a guest post written by my hoops buddy and Boston Celtic fanatic, Alwin San Jose.
The good thing about being in the US is that I do not need
to download via torrent certain sports documentaries/specials because of a
service like HBO Go. The NBA season is underway, and what captured my attention
was a short documentary entitled “The
Off-Season: Kevin Durant.”
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| Kevin Durant: His Game Never Ends. (image from LifeAndTimes.com) |
It goes for barely an hour, and it has the look and feel of
an NBATV production. Given that it’s an HBO Sports production, however, the
difference is that it was just a bunch of cameras following Kevin Durant and
having him explain what happens to him during the highlights of this year’s off
season (think Inside Freddie Roach).
The documentary starts on Day 1 (of
course), when KD is fresh off being eliminated in the West Finals by the
eventual champions, the San Antonio Spurs. He has been out of sorts for the
first three days of the off-season since, as documented everywhere, he is tired
of constantly finishing #2 – 2nd pick of his draft class, 2nd
best player behind LeBron, and now 2nd in the West to the Spurs. He
is sick and tired of hearing this 2nd place crap. The start of the
document has him mention that he can’t settle for that. He will be measured by
championships, and the off-season has shown that work does not stop when the
playoffs end.
The documentary has shown that he is
a real gym rat, that this is not all a glorified press release. He works out in
LA (he feels comfortable working on his game in Los Angeles – a tease to all
Laker Fans), he works out with his OKC Thunder partner, Russ Westbrook, in Sand
Dune Park in Manhattan Beach, he works out in playground leagues, he works out
with Melo in NYC, and he works out with Steve Nash before this season (Nash teaches
Durant the nuances of getting space to release his jump shot). What KD mentions
(and is shown in all of these basketball trainings) is that off-season is
getting better in the game that you love.
Apart from this main storyline of
the documentary, here are some bullet points that caught my fancy while watching:
· As mentioned earlier, Steve Nash works
out with him and he is passing on some of the tricks that he learned throughout
the years to KD. Looking back, and based on what happened to Nash before the
start of the season, it felt like a passing of the torch from a member of the
greatest 90s draft class to a member of a great 2000s draft class
· Durant goes back home to Washington
this off-season. As he goes around the neighborhood where he grew up, he
wistfully attaches childhood memories with each place he points to. He credited
his game blossoming in Washington. A good sign for the #kd2dc movement? Stay
tuned.
· Roc Nation (Jay-Z sports agency)
figures prominently in this documentary, showing KD’s agent taking care of him
every step of the way (handling the “KD brand” in a “business partners” meeting
– namely the brands that he endorses, taking care of his publicity appearances
and commercial shoots, among others). This documentary sure can be sent to
other top athletes as a recruiting video for Roc Nation!
· Before signing back with Nike, there
isa scene in the documentary where KD is with his agent and he is holding (and
looking) at an Under Armour basketball shoe. Judging by the look on KD’s face,
you could feel that he was not going to sign with them (well hindsight is 20/20
some might say)
· You can understand that he was really
mentally and emotionally spent when he quit the US Men’s basketball team before
the FIBA World Cup (with all the basketball training that I have mentioned
above). And he also addresses that the Paul George injury got to him; it made
him afraid for his own career.
· All the training and off-season
scrimmages that were shown in the documentary (I am sure there are more games
that were not seen in the off-season) took their toll on KD given that the
documentary ended with the news that he had a stress fracture on his foot. So
his “off-season” was lengthened for another month or so. And it seems that, in
his voice, this was eating him up, the thought that another year might be
wasted. Still, he knows that he will continue to improve and strive to be the
best.
Overall, the documentary, on the
surface, feels unfiltered, and it covers so much of an NBA superstar’s life: so
much responsibility, so much load. But at the end of it, the priority is still
to improve and mature as a basketball player, the best job in the world (for KD
and I’m sure for most rabid Pinoy basketball fans).
Follow the writer on Twitter: @alwinsj
Follow the writer on Twitter: @alwinsj
The promo clip for "The Off-Season: Kevin Durant":
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