All but unnoticed, Kevin Durant made an announcement no one had been awaiting. Forgoing a chance to sort out his own list of glamour markets, he had agreed to a five-year extension in Oklahoma City. Durant, who is from suburban Washington, believed that Oklahoma City was just right for him — and his agent, his publicist, and even Nike, his demographics-savvy sneaker partner, never said a word to the contrary.
Although maybe that is because Durant says he never mentioned his decision to them.
“It never came up,” Durant said recently in Los Angeles, as if it were understood that serpents did not offer apples to young stars with unlined faces and wide-eyed countenances. “I enjoy the city and the organization so much, it never came up.”Nike tiempo legend iv review come to have a look.
“It’s different,” he said of an N.B.A. outpost that is one of the smallest markets in the league and does not come with the size and traffic and crowds that other franchises have.
“That’s why I like it, man. It’s a perfect place to just relax and play ball and get your mind off stuff and just grow. So I’m blessed I got this opportunity to play there.”
Durant, 23, has won three consecutive scoring titles. His Thunder earned the Western Conference’s No. 2 seed and are favored in their first-round series against the Dallas Mavericks, last season’s N.B.A. champions.
Durant, the latest in an N.B.A. line of golden children that extends from Kobe Bryant through James, still wears a backpack, like one of today’s students.Womens Nike dunk heels high is popular now.
When he announced his extension, the thoroughly modern Durant handled it all himself — via Twitter, with standard stylized spelling and mistakes that even young people make typing with their thumbs: “Exstension for 5 more years wit the thunder. . .God Is Great, me and my family came a long way. . .I love yall man forreal, this a blessing!”
Bryant and James arrived in the N.B.A. intent on going everywhere Michael Jordan had — an impossible standard commercially with Jordan having rewritten all the rules.
Bryant was hailed by fellow teenagers, who voted him into the All-Star starting lineup while he was still a Lakers reserve.
By 23, Bryant had left Adidas, blaming it for slowing sales of his gear, and ultimately changing his uniform number from 8 to 24 when it continued its Crazy Eight line.
By 29, Bryant was desperate to leave his moribund team, but he nonetheless limited himself to major-market contenders — of which he could find only one, Chicago, which, it turned out, didn’t have an All-Star player the Lakers were demanding in exchange.
At 33, Bryant is now an elder statesman, with the cachet of five championship rings.
Following along at 27, James, who listed his goal matter-of-factly at 21 as “global icon,” has now collected the ashes.
A back-to-back most valuable player at 25, James was pulled, or dived headlong, off his pedestal in 2010 when Boston upset the Cavaliers in the second round in 2010, after which he announced he was “going to take my talents to South Beach.”
James’s travail continues — at a high level, with him and Durant front-runners in polls of M.V.P. voters.
It is an adventure for Durant, who does not consider himself a peer. Showing how fast N.B.A. generations turn over, Durant doesn’t even think 27 is so young.
“He is a middle-aged guy, isn’t he?” Durant said of James, smiling.“I think I’m one of the younger guys. He’s one of the guys — he’s still young but he’s old, you know what I mean?“I can’t explain it, but he’s one of the guys who’s been in this league a while and done so much. Stuff he’s doing, you only wish you could do.”
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