Kevin Wayne Durant is a professional basketball player for the National Basketball Association (NBA) who played for the Oklahoma City Thunder (formally known as Seattle Supersonics) and who now plays for the Brooklyn Nets.
Durant was born September 29, 1988, in Washington, D.C. to Wanda Durant and Wayne Pratt. Durant’s father abandoned the family when he was still an infant, leaving his mother and grandmother, Barbara Davis, to raise him. Durant’s father later returned to his life when Durant was 13 years old.
Durant’s involvement in sports began when he played for a youth basketball team in Prince George’s County, Maryland called the PG Jaguars. Durant attended several Christian schools where he played high school basketball. His first two years were spent at the National Christian Academy located in Fort Washington, Maryland. Durant then attended Oak Hill Academy, a private Baptist secondary school in Mouth-of-Wilson, Virginia during his junior year and then transferred to Montrose Christian School in Rockville, Maryland for his senior year. Despite his frequent transfers, sports writers recognized his talent. Durant was named to Pride Magazine’s First Team list and USA Today’s First Team All-American lists.
After graduating from high school in 2006, Durant attended the University of Texas at Austin where he played for the Texas Longhorns men’s basketball team. During his freshman year with the Longhorns, Durant started in every game and averaged 25.8 points per game and 11 rebounds. He helped lead the Longhorns to the second round of the National College Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Basketball Championship which the Longhorns lost to the University of Southern California. At the end of his freshman year, Durant was national college player of the year (2007), First Team All-American (2007), winner of the Oscar Robertson and the Adolph F. Rupp Awards, and he was named the Big 12 Tournament’s Most Valuable Player.
After playing one year with the Longhorns, Durant declared eligibility for the NBA Draft. He was picked second overall in the first round of the 2007 NBA Draft by the Seattle Supersonics. During his rookie season, Durant was a member of the Rookie All-First Team and named NBA Rookie of the Year (2008). After the 2007-2008 season ended, the Supersonics relocated from Seattle, Washington to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and became the Oklahoma City Thunder.
During Durant’s time with the Thunder, he was a seven-time NBA All-Star (2010-2016), NBA All-Star Game MVP (2012), four-time NBA scoring champion (2010-2012, 2014), and the league’s Most Valuable Player (2014). In 2012 Durant and Russell Westbrook led the Thunder to the NBA Championship Series where they lost in five games to the Miami (Florida) Heat, led by LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh.
Durant remained with the Thunder until the end of the 2016 season when he joined the Golden State Warriors. Together with teammates Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green, the Warriors met in the 2017 NBA Championship Series where they defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers led by LeBron James, Kyrie Irving, and Kevin Love. Although the Warriors won their fifth national championship, it was the first for Durant who also earned MVP honors for the five-game series. In the summer of 2019, Durant signed with the Brooklyn Nets.
Kevin Durant is single and has no children. On March 17, 2020, it was announced that he had tested positive for COVID-19/