I don’t 100% know if this is a true story or just a legend, but I do know that it is my favorite story about Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets.
When Durant was in college at the University of Texas, they had a game against Alcorn State. About 4 hours before the game, an assistant coach for Alcorn was walking around the arena in Texas. None of the Texas or Alcorn players had arrived yet.
As the coach gets closer to the doors, he hears a ball bouncing. So he looks inside and low and behold, KD is on the court getting a workout in. He is drenched in sweat. But that isn’t the only thing that the Alcorn State coach notices. He looks a bit closer and sees that Durant is wearing a weighted vest. KD is going game speed through drills with a weighted vest on.
So the coach sat and watched for about 45 minutes until Durant finished. Everything Durant did was game speed. Dribbling drills, shooting, conditioning, finishing through contact, etc. The coach’s curiosity got the best of him. He goes down and says to KD, “Hey, don’t you know that you have a game against us in a couple hours?”
KD replied, “No offense Coach, but I am not training for you guys.” That is the most gangster reply that I have ever heard. Later that game, KD dropped 20 against them in a convincing victory.
KD wasn’t practicing just for that moment, he was practicing for the future. He was chasing his goals and always keeping one eye on the present while the other eye was on the future.
Preparation Breeds Confidence
Coach Connor
CF Hoops
(Alexis Bailey, Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0, 2019 )
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