by:Kevin Pelton
Back home in Maryland, Seattle SuperSonics rookie Kevin Durant was napping when his mother woke him up screaming about important news. When he cleared his head, Durant realized it wasn't a dream: He had been selected the 2007-08 T-Mobile Rookie of the Year.
On Thursday, Durant and the Sonics organization celebrated the honor as he was presented with the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy awarded to the Rookie of the Year in a press conference held at T-Mobile USA Headquarters in Bellevue, Wash.
"To end the season as Rookie of the Year is like icing on the cake," Durant said.
That Durant would be named the NBA's top rookie wasn't exactly surprising. He had been considered the clear favorite for the award since September, when No. 1 overall pick Greg Oden of the Portland Trail Blazers underwent season-ending microfracture knee surgery. Along the way, players including Atlanta's Al Horford and Houston's Luis Scola challenged Durant with their performance. However, in the wake of a strong finish to the season, Durant was the clear winner. He received 90 of a possible 125 first-place votes to outpoint runner-up Horford and third-place finisher Scola.
"Those of us that saw him all year, I don't think there was any doubt in our minds," said Sonics Head Coach P.J. Carlesimo. "Still, believing something is going to happen and it actually happening (are different)."
During the press conference, Sonics General Manager Sam Presti, emcee Matt Pinto (the team's radio voice on KTTH 770 AM) and T-Mobile Chief Customer and Operations Officer Sue Nokes saluted Durant's accomplishments on the floor and his maturity off of it. The combination of the two, Nokes said before presenting Durant the trophy, made him "the perfect winner."
From Presti's perspective, the Rookie of the Year award was the culmination of Durant's hard work not just during his rookie season but throughout his basketball career that has made him the player he is today.
Asked by Pinto to identify a moment when he realized Durant was a special player, Presti recalled a story from last summer. While Durant was playing for USA Basketball in Las Vegas, the team held an optional practice on a Friday night. As Presti found out the following morning, just three players attended: Kobe Bryant, fellow Sonics rookie Jeff Green and Durant.
"Those are the moments when you realize you not only have a really talented player in your organization, but one that has a true passion for getting better," Presti said. "And we're really fortunate for that."
To call this award a culmination of Durant's work would be true, but also not the entire story. For at the same time, it's also an early milestone in Durant's promising NBA career. This may be his first NBA award, but it's surely not his last.
"I've worked hard my whole life," said Durant. Now it's starting to pay off, but I know this is the beginning of things to come - first of all hopefully bigger and better things for the team and then for myself if I continue to work.
"This is just the beginning. I want to continue to work hard this summer and next year to become a better player to help this team out."
Durant became the first Sonics player ever to win Rookie of the Year honors. He's also just the fourth Rookie of the Year in major Seattle professional sports history, joining three Seattle Mariners - Alvin Davis (1984), Kazuhiro Sasaki (2000) and Ichiro Suzuki (2001). Durant joins an elite group of NBA Rookies of the Year which includes, just within the past five years, stars LeBron James, Chris Paul, Brandon Roy and Amare Stoudemire.
Though all of those players entered the NBA with fanfare, Carlesimo believes Durant faced the most challenging situation as a rookie. From day one, Durant was asked to be the Sonics go-to player on offense and face double-teams and other defensive schemes designed to stop him. Yet Durant came through, particularly late in the season. After the All-Star break, Durant averaged 21.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.7 assists per game, shooting 47.6% from the field.
Durant was also at his best in clutch situations, coming up with key shots in the fourth quarter for the Sonics all season long.
"It's just me maybe being defensive about it, but I think how special his year was is really not appreciated by people," Carlesimo said. "He made it, if anything, look easy at times. He was so much a different player in March or April than he was early in the year, particularly in the fourth quarter. He showed some things that other people don't have and he's going to continue to show going forward. I just think it would have been a lot easier for him in almost any other rookie situation in the league this year."
"I would say it was tough some games," downplayed Durant. "I remember when I would get the ball, guys would double-team me and when I would come off of screens, they would double-team. That's just a learning experience; good players in this league go through that. Hopefully guys continue to respect my game and I'll just continue to work hard."
When those double-teams came, Durant was supported by his teammates throughout the season, and he returned the favor during the press conference, thanking them for the role the played in the award.
"I talked to all of them," he said. "They all called me, text-messaged me, congratulating me. I wish they were here with me right now to accept this award. That would be even better."
In addition to presenting Durant with his award, Thursday's press conference also wrapped up T-Mobile's season-long rookie-related community effort. For each point scored by the T-Mobile Rookies of the Month in both conferences, T-Mobile donated $20 to the Recovery School District in New Orleans. The final tally was $49,700 for the school district, including $28,500 from the points scored by Durant during the five months he won Rookie of the Month for the Western Conference.
"I think the best thing about this award is I did all I can do for the kids in New Orleans," Durant said. "I thank T-Mobile for that."
The timing of the award carried special meaning for Durant because he found out yesterday. Three years earlier to the day, Charles Craig, an assistant on Durant's AAU team, was murdered at age 35. Durant has worn the No. 35 at Texas and with the Sonics to honor Craig, and now he plans to dedicate the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy to his late coach's memory by giving it to Taras Brown, the head coach of Durant's AAU team and also his godfather.
"My godfather, he was also a coach on that team and they were good friends," Durant explained. "I just want to give it to him to show how much I worked hard and dedicate the award to my late coach. I want to give it to him and put it in the rec center for everyone to see." (SOURCE)
