Kevin Durant went back to the Bay Area last weekend. He’s now going back to school.
A nostalgic time for Phoenix’s All-Star forward continues Thursday, when Durant and the Suns play San Antonio in Austin, Texas — a home game for the Spurs and a homecoming for Durant, since the game brings him back to where he played his one college season with the Longhorns.
“It does mean a lot to me,” Durant said. “I’m excited that we get to go back to play a regular-season game there. Austin is a place where I kind of started this journey, and to have so many friends and family that are still there from, what, 16, 17 years ago is pretty sweet. So, I appreciate the NBA for setting this up. This is a unique time.”
Durant’s lone season in Austin was 2006-07, and he was college basketball’s best player that year. He averaged 25.8 points and 11.1 rebounds, finishing the season ranked fourth nationally in both of those categories on his way to being selected as player of the year by The Associated Press and a number of other outlets.
He declared for the draft after that season, went No. 2 overall to Seattle in 2007 and the accolades keep piling up. Durant is the only men’s player in USA Basketball history to win four Olympic gold medals, he won two championships with Golden State — returning to the Bay this past weekend after being selected as an All-Star for the 15th time — and just became the eighth player in NBA history to eclipse the 30,000-point mark.
“I think it’s an awesome opportunity for himself — and for the city of Austin to come out and support one of our great players who is still in the prime of his career right now,” Texas coach Rodney Terry said. “He’s scored over 30,000 points, he’s one of the all-time scorers at the next level, one of the all-time scorers at the collegiate level. But to have an opportunity come back where you played collegiately, to play a professional game against one of the best organizations in all of professional sports in the Spurs, you can’t ask for a better scenario.”
This is the third consecutive season where the Spurs have played two home games in Austin, about 75 miles northeast of San Antonio. The Spurs see Austin as part of a mega-region that they’ve been cultivating for years, even stretching into Mexico — and this year’s home games help break up the annual rodeo road trip. The San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo typically sends the Spurs on the road for much of February, so this year’s games in Austin break up that window.
The Spurs also play in Austin on Friday against Detroit. The Suns got to Austin on Tuesday and one of Durant’s first stops was the Longhorns’ practice.
“I’m going to try to roam around the city a little bit,” Durant said this past weekend when asked if he had plans to check out some of his favorite places in Austin. “I don’t have a set schedule, but I’ve got some stuff I want to see.”
Austin is very much a Spurs town; the team’s G League affiliate plays there and plenty of fans at the Moody Center on Thursday and Friday will surely be wearing Victor Wembanyama jerseys. But there’s going to be a slew of Texas jerseys and Durant garb visible in the crowd on Thursday, for good reason.
“To have him come back here and be here this week and be around our guys and see our guys, I mean, you can’t ask for anything better than that,” Terry said. “A lot of our guys’ favorite player is Kevin Durant. Why they chose to come to Texas was Kevin Durant. He’s had an incredible impact not only on our basketball program but also on our athletic program as a whole. He’s an incredible ambassador for Texas athletics.”
