Calm Durant keeps it all in perspective
OAKLAND — The Warriors set up a massive news conference room for media day on Monday. Rows of desks were surrounded by piles of overflow chairs. Cords slithered everywhere. Cameras lined a platform in the back, pointed at a larger platform in the front, where player after player circulated through.
Kevin Durant batted eighth, the most anticipated hitter buried deep in the lineup. He strolled to the podium with a smile, then folded into his seat, the next small step in his new world. The optics remain a bit strange.
Behind Durant, three banners rose about 10 feet over his head, for background visual purposes. Each had 77 Warriors logos plastered on them, 231 in all, as if the organization was screaming at your eyeballs: ‘‘Yeah, remember, he plays for us now.’’
“It’s real,” Durant said, a 232nd Warrior logo planted on the front of his No. 35 jersey.
But Durant isn’t a newbie to the game. He’s a media day veteran. Monday wasn’t much different. Durant zipped from station to station, autographing basketballs, sliding behind some curtains for radio voice-overs and navigating through various photo stations. He’s long transformed from athlete to brand. This is his comfort zone.
The news conference had a few more people than his previous media days in middle Amer-
ica. But the NBA megastar has faced crowds far deeper and been asked questions far more stressful.
“It’s about the same, to be honest,” Durant said. “Doing the same things, the same coverage.”
Monday was easy. Tuesday begins business. It’s everything outside of that building in which he’s still adjusting. This wasn’t the easiest summer for Durant to make a mid-career leap. He barely had any time for the move or acclimation.
A few days after signing, he held an introductory news conference on July 7. He was in the Bay Area less than a day. Then he was off to Asia for more than a week. Then it was to Vegas for Team USA camp and Rio for the Olympics. He made a quick pit stop at Oracle for an exhibition, but that was brief and hectic.
By the time the Olympics were over, his offseason was almost dead. He had to squeeze out a final few trips, for both business and pleasure. He popped up in Greece for a vacation, Austin for a leadership conference, Washington, D.C., his home, for an NFL game and both Seattle and Madison, Wisconsin, for some charity work.
Durant’s been a Warrior for nearly three months. But only a handful of those days have actually been spent in the Bay Area. He’s still settling into his Oakland Hills home. Life without air conditioning, like for many around the Bay the last couple days, has been brutal.
“My life will change just because I’m in a different city,” Durant said. “I think that’s probably the only thing. My game? We’ll see.”
The offseason has provided plenty of stress for Durant, but also time for his life-altering decision to settle. Perspective comes when you visit a maximum-security prison like San Quentin, which Durant did Saturday. Realization comes during those quiet times on his countless flights.
“It’s just become more and more realistic as each day goes by,” he said.
Venom likely awaits Durant in almost every opposing city this offseason. He gets a taste of it any time he opens social media these days. In a recent interview on HBO’s “Any Given Wednesday,” that backlash seemed to have formed a defiant edge in Durant as camped loomed.
Maybe it did. But Durant tried not to show it on Monday. He’s known to be moody with reporters, but at media day that mood was generally pleasant. He was gracious before and after his news conference and upbeat during it.
“It’s new, fresh and I’m looking forward to it,” Durant said of his new venture. “I just got super excited as I was walking in here. Just to play here and play for this great organization and play with these players, I’m excited.”
Minor jabs still seem to irk him. A reporter asked whether he’d have joined the Warriors had they won the title. “They didn’t,” Durant quickly shot back.
But even though some players thrive with that extra edge — and Durant certainly has at times in the past — Durant says he’s not searching for fuel from the outside.
“I always play with passion,” Durant said. “But my thing is just playing for myself. I don’t want to go out there and play upset with everybody else. I want to play my game and enjoy the game of basketball.”
A huge adjustment period lies ahead. But a chunk of that may have more to do with his new life off the court. On it, his teammates are pretty confident he’ll fit in well.
“There were some holes on our team (last year),” Andre Iguodala said. “We got a monster to fill them all.”