Kevin Wayne Durant, an American professional basketball player, was born on September 29th, 1988, in Washington D.C. Before his first birthday, his father deserted the family, and his parents eventually divorced, and he moved out to Maryland, where he grew up with his three siblings, raised by his mother, Wanda, and his grandmother, Barbara. During his childhood, he showed interested in sports, more specifically, basketball, and was encouraged to play; being the tall kid he always was, that supposed him a great advantage when we was out in the court, though he was naturally skilled.
However, it wasn’t until he started to play for Prince George Jaguar, an Amateur Athletic Union youth basketball team, that he got to his first serious competition: with him in uniform, the team won two national championships consecutively. At age 13, he reunited with his father, who would accompany him to competitions and games, and as he grew, he played for different teams. For his senior year in high school, he played for Montrose Christian School. Before the season even started, he had already committed to the University of Texas, and by the time he concluded his senior year, he was named the Washington Post All-Met Basketball Player of the Year, and the Most Valuable Player of the 2006 McDonald’s All-American Game.
Kevin was an immediate revelation; he did great during the season, and soon he was being called the best offensive player in the college game. His team, the Longhorns, was led by him and A.J. Abrams to the Big 12 Tournament, and rapidly scaled positions, performing brilliantly, until they got to the finals, where they unfortunately lost to the University of Southern Carolina, but at the end of March he had already won the Adolph F. Rupp and the Oscar Robertson awards, becoming the first freshman to receive both honors.
After just one year of high school, Durant declared for the 2007 NBA draft, and in June of that same year, he was chosen second overall by the Seattle SuperSonics; at the conclusion of the first season he had played along his new team, he was named by the NBA “Rookie of the Year”. Also, the Seattle SuperSonics relocated his organization from Seattle to Oklahoma City, becoming the Oklahoma City Thunder. Despite this, Durant continued to play with the team, and was named an NBA All-Star three times, and to the All-NBA First Team, three times, too.
In 2010, the player was named 2010 FIBA World Championship MVP by the International Basketball Federation, and the year after that, he was chosen to play with the 2012 U.S Olympic basketball team, year in which the team took a gold medal to their country.
On July, 2016, Durant announced his intentions to sign on with the Golden State Warriors, choice which was received with negative criticism by the NBA, and for the second time, he took home another gold metal after his return from Rio 2016, where he played with the 2016 U.S. Olympic basketball team. Nowadays, he ranks No. 26 in Forbes Magazine’s Highest Paid Celebrities list, with an estimated fortune of $56 million.
