Here is a Sports Illustrated article on OKC's Kevin Durant:Kevin Durant bows his head, raises his hand, and a franchise circles him like a maypole: teammates, of course, but also coaches and trainers, the general manager and assistant general manager, the scouting coordinator and communications director, folks from the video room and the equipment room, guys from the Development League affiliate in Tulsa and undrafted free agents who won't even make it that far. They try to reach the 6'9" Durant's outstretched hand, but no one can, so they settle for the wrist or the elbow or the space around him. They are too tired to lift their arms for long. "One, two, three, family," Durant says, in a haggard breath. "Family," the group pants back, in unison. Then they walk together across the field, over the ditch and up the Hill for the last time.
The Hill, as it is known to the Thunder, is a misnomer. Central Oklahoma does not really have hills, but it does have floods, which require drainage basins the size of parking lots. Run up the side of a basin and you might as well be scaling a sand dune. Twice a week every September, when NBA teams are technically still on vacation, most of the Thunder meet early in the morning at the practice facility, pile into pickup trucks and roll into a brick subdivision alongside a creek in nearby Edmond, Okla. The basin that borders the creek has been covered with grass, lined with sycamore trees and turned into a neighborhood park. The smell of fertilizer hangs in the air. Residents walk their dogs and wonder if summer will ever give way to fall. They look down at their park and shrug at the sight of professional athletes racing each other 60 feet up steep inclines while tossing medicine balls in the sky. "They're just part of our backyard now," says Angela Vaughn, who lives in a house across from the park.
Durant was not supposed to run the Hill this year. Only 21, the silky small forward led the U.S. to its first gold medal in 16 years at the world championships in Turkey, took one day off and was back at the Oklahoma City practice facility before his bosses even knew he was in the country. When he woke on the final Wednesday before training camp—the last time the Thunder would head for the Hill—he only felt like shooting. "Then I thought about it for a minute, and I couldn't do that to my guys," Durant says. "It wouldn't have been fair to them." The Hill does not afford preferential treatment. Front-office executives drop their Blackberries, swap dress clothes for practice gear and run suicides. Entry-level assistants join them. When they are all sufficiently gassed, they head back to the pickup trucks, Durant sneaking a spot in a bed before coaches wisely point him to a passenger seat.
