Tuesday Bolts – 8.25.09
The Traber/Simmons war has reached its absolute boiling point, as it made Deadspin yesterday. Hopefully if things don’t fall through, I’ll have more on this (and hopefully the last word, at least from me) later today.
Kevin Durant returned to DC again, this time dropping 40 against Washington’s Andray Blatche and Sacto’s Donte Greene. Oh, and Jeff Green scored 28. They played this one at Georgetown though, not on the playground. Video!
More: “To get a sense of the allocation of NBA talent at Sunday afternoon’s charity game at Georgetown’s McDonogh Gymnasium, one needed only to look at the rosters. Kevin Durant played for one team, while Jeff Green, Andray Blatche, and Pops Mensah-Bonsu suited up for the other. Sounds fair. The game, held to raise money for Project Giveback and run in connection with The Goodman League, would’ve featured Durant against even more NBA talent — if more players had shown as promised.”
KD has tried to get Uncle Jeff to Twitter: “[Durant and Green are] also good friends – they’ve had to be, since they’ve been attached at the hip since draft night three years ago. If there’s one difference, though, Green doesn’t Twitter. (By the way, follow me here.) “I’ve tried to [get him to],” said Durant (@KevinDurant35), who has over 61,000 followers. “He said he doesn’t know how to work it. I’m going to teach him how, though.”
Pro Basketball News ranked KD the second best small forward: “He won’t turn 21 until Sept. 29 and is coming off a sophomore season where he averaged 25.3 points despite commanding the attention of every defense. His progress eliminated the volume shooter criticism, as he improved his shot selection and wound up at a near-48 percent clip, including 42 percent from 3-point range. At this point, he’s the next big thing, on schedule to become the youngest NBA scoring champion in history this season. Max Zaslofsky and Bob McAdoo were over 22 when they won scoring crowns, while LeBron was 23 when he led the league in ’07-’08. Durant has 2009-10 to make history, and will.”
HoopsWorld counts down the most influential people in basketball: “Aaron Goodwin, CEO of Goodwin Sports Management: Goodwin counts NBA mega-star Dwight Howard and future mega-star Kevin Durant as his top shelf clients. However, he has more than $125 million in guaranteed contract dollars and is one of the biggest names in the agent game. As Dwight Howard’s agent he influences the direction of one of the fastest-rising stars in the sports marketing world and will only get stronger as Kevin Durant matures.”
Nick Collison loves the Midwest!: “Im having a siouxper time in americas heartland. Me to iowa is as fish to water.”
I can’t believe I missed this. From SI writer Grant Wahl: “Just listened to @nickcollison4 own Oklahoma radio clown. Don’t mess with NC–one of the all-time good guys/interviews/thinkers in sports.” Uh-oh Grant Wahl. Uh. Oh.
