This is 'it': Texas has something phenomenal in Durant

AUSTIN, Texas -- Kevin Durant remembers the day, still.

Expect Durant to turn heads in Texas. (Getty Images)

It was a nice day, not unlike most for most 11 year olds, and he had just finished a game over at the Seat Pleasant Recreation Center, back home in Maryland. That's the day something clicked, that's when he first knew for sure. So little Kevin -- though he wasn't that little, to tell the truth -- walked through the front door, found his mom on the couch watching television and asked if he could have one of those big talks.

The birds and bees?

More like baskets and balls.

"I said, 'Mom, can you turn the TV down a little bit?'" Durant recalled the other day at lunch while tearing apart some crab legs, similar to how many believe he'll tear through the Big 12 this season. "So she turned the TV down, and that's when I told her I wanted to play basketball for a living."

Basketball for a living.

No guidance counselor could've done better.

"Kevin has a chance to have it all," said Texas coach Rick Barnes. "There's nothing he can't do."

It should be noted that it's not typically wise for people to, at the age of 11, choose sports as a career. I wanted to play shortstop for the Mets when I was 11. But I had no arm and couldn't hit much better than A-Rod in the postseason. To all those who pushed me in other directions, I say thanks.

But for Kevin Durant, playing basketball for a living was a good, sensible career to choose, at any age. Just like William Faulkner was made to write, Karl Rove was made to campaign and Johnny Knoxville was made to fight bulls blindfolded in his underwear on film, Kevin Durant was made to play basketball.

It's pretty clear at first sight.

Even if first sight has the Texas freshman holding a bag of ice on his face.

"I had a tooth that was broke in half, so they just decided to pull it out Saturday morning," Durant said two days post procedure. "It was the worst thing I've ever felt in my life. Ruined my weekend."

Along with Greg Oden (Ohio State), Thaddeus Young (Georgia Tech), Brandan Wright (North Carolina) and Spencer Hawes (Washington), Durant is the first gift college basketball will enjoy as a result of the NBA's age limit that is forcing elite prospects who would likely otherwise be professionals into a university near you.

He's 6-9 (in his socks) with a 7-4 wingspan, and could probably be an All-American shooting guard or center, or anything in between. Gifted and versatile are nice labels, yet, at the same time, tremendous understatements.

The other day at a workout on campus, Durant made seven NBA 3-pointers in a row, got pissed when he finally missed, then spent the next 20 minutes doing nothing but catching balls with his back to the basket. Fake right, spin, square up, go back right, spin and finish off the glass. One rep after another, it went on and on. And while everybody on campus has a different way of explaining these physical attributes, Texas strength and conditioning coach Todd Wright -- who has already helped Durant go from 206 pounds to 224 pounds -- might have summarized things the quickest, and the best.

"He's silly sick," Wright said. "I've never seen anything like him. Never."

Understand, Wright didn't just get to Texas two months ago. He has been there as long as Barnes has been there, eight years going on nine. So he's seen his share of players, guys like T.J. Ford, LaMarcus Aldridge, P.J. Tucker and Daniel Gibson. Still, Wright has never seen anything like Durant. And honestly, Barnes isn't sure he has, either.

Asked how the McDonald's All-American would've fit on last season's team, the one that had the No. 2 pick in the NBA Draft (Aldridge) and Big 12 Player of the Year (Tucker), Barnes didn't hesitate. "Kevin would've possibly been the best of the group."

Seriously?

"Yeah," Barnes said. "You know, coach (Darrell) Royal always talked about that it thing; you either got it or you don't. Kevin's got it. It comes in a lot of forms, mental toughness, passion, love. But whatever it is, he's got it."

For a moment, let's call it humility.

Durant has it.

Three weeks ago, he was hanging at the practice facility on a Friday afternoon, watching the Texas managers play a pickup game against the graduate assistants. Suddenly, manager Scott Weatherford found himself on the ground, in pain, and the first guy over was Durant. The guy running downstairs to grab ice and help Weatherford any way possible? That was Durant, too.

"I was surprised a player like him would do all that," Weatherford said, his broken ankle now in a cast. Added Durant matter-of-factly, "That's my manager. I had to help him out."

For a moment, let's call it work ethic.

Durant has it.

"We were doing individual workouts in groups of four the first two weeks of September, and Kevin was going through the perimeter workout and the post workout without anybody saying anything to him about it, without anybody telling him it would probably be good for him to go through both workouts," said Texas assistant Russell Springmann, who is, like Durant, a Maryland native, making him the perfect point man on Durant's recruitment. "Kevin volunteers to go through two workouts, and then he stays for an extra hour or hour and a half to work on his shot. He's always the guy saying, 'Coach, I want to work on this, and I want to work on that.'"

While Springmann was telling this story, Durant ran over and interrupted, having just completed another shooting drill.

"Coach," he said. "What's next?"

"See?" Springmann said with a smile. "What you just saw is truly Kevin Durant. He's like that all the time, and that's why he's continued to get better. He always wants to keep going."

Well, not always.

There was this one time, a long time ago, when Durant was ready to stop. For good. It came when he was 13 years old, roughly two years after that day he had told his mother, Wanda Pratt, he wanted to hoop for a living. Now Durant had stopped seeing progress, and he'd had enough of his PG Jaguars summer-league team. So he walked through that same front door, told his mother he wanted to talk again.

"The first time he told me he wanted to play basketball for a living, I said, 'OK, but you cannot quit. I'm not going to let you quit,'" recalled Pratt, a postal service worker back in Maryland. "But then he and another little boy on his team both wanted to quit. And finally I said, 'OK, if you want to quit, you can quit. But you have to play soccer.'"

Soccer?

"Basketball was used as an activity, you see, and I was going to have Kevin in some kind of activity," Pratt explained. "So it was either soccer or basketball."

And ...

"Of course, he didn't want to play soccer," Pratt said with a laugh. "So he decided to stick with basketball."

No guidance counselor could've done better.