A lot of things need to happen in order for someone to become one of the greatest offensive players in NBA history. Being 6-foot-10, with an even bigger wingspan that comes in at around 7-foot-5, certainly helps. Having ridiculous athleticism, hand-eye coordination, stamina and general basketball skill needs to be there.
But though Kevin Durant has those things, you can't forget about the fact that he, as is the case with other greats of the game, also has a different level of work ethic that you just don't see all that often. In the great sentence structure of the popular "Lord of the Rings" meme... one does not simply score like Kevin Durant does. The statistics highlighted in the article I wrote below are from late February, but they still get the point across.
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Just how hard will Durant work to improve? A new story from NBA trainer Rob McClanaghan demonstrates that it doesn't even seem like hard work for KD. Instead, it's more of a genuine desire — and perhaps need? — to just keep playing ball.
"I did a Nike tour with him, we did four cities [in] about eight days," McClanaghan said on the latest episode of the "Audacy NBA Show" with Ryan McDonough. "We flew from L.A. on the Nike plane to New York to refuel, and then the plane like shut down... seven hours later we get another plane, and we land in Paris around like midnight."
Pretty late, right? Settle in, get a quick bite, hit the hay at their luxurious hotel, and feel refreshed for the new day. That seems like a reasonable plan for the night that I'd have no opposition to.
"He says to me on the bus going to the hotel... 'I want to get a workout in, I'm wide awake,' because, you know, we were on the west coast time or whatever, we slept on the plane," McClanaghan said. "And I say, 'yeah, we'll go in tomorrow at 9:00 a.m.'
"He goes, 'no, I want to work out right now.' "
In the middle of Paris. At midnight. And with a full itinerary coming up. McClanaghan says that he then worked with some of the Nike employees on the tour with them — who he says were "freaking out" — and found a "sh---y gym" that was used by Tony Parker's youth team. The quality of the gym did not accurately represent the quality of the workout, however.
"...It was one of the best workouts I've ever seen anybody have," said McClanaghan, who has worked with the likes of Durant, Stephen Curry, Derrick Rose and many others. "I mean, we went an hour and 15 minutes, I don't remember him missing a shot. It was so intense.
"...That one workout doesn't make KD improve, but [it does] when you do that time over time over time over time. But he didn't have to do that. We would've been fine. We would've been at the Four Seasons, had a nice little dinner and drink and go to sleep but he wanted to get it in. And nobody else on the bus wanted to go to a gym but the one guy who had to work out, which is crazy, so that just defines KD.
"That's just who he is, and a lot of these guys say they're basketball junkies but they're not. KD, all he wants to do is play. When we're not playing we're watching, whether it's college or NBA, and we're talking about it, talking about trades... and he really is a junkie and I'm happy that he's come back the way he has this year."
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