Tag Archives: Kevin Durant

NewBlackMan (in Exile): Kevin Durant and the Myth of Michael Jordan’s America

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Kevin Durant and the Myth of Michael Jordan’s America

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

With game #3 in the NBA finals set for tonight, and the series in question, one thing not in question is that the league has finally found its Michael Jordan for the twenty-first century. While others have fallen short for a number of reasons, it seems that Kevin Durant is on the precipice of following in Air Jordan’s footsteps.

Although the NBA lockout marked the end of this search, given the league’s focus on team rivalries over superstars, it now clear that Kevin Durant has taken the mantle. Irrespective of who ultimately wins the series, Kevin Durant has already been declared the winner of America’s next best commodifiable baller. His reign is not so much about basketball but the narrative, the embedded racial meaning, his appeal in “red state America,” and the representational possibilities available with Durant. Clearly LeBron James’ basketball resume is on the same level; in fact, with multiple MVP awards, endless skill, and an ability to dominate each and every game at both ends of the floor, LB6 has game that is once in generation. The same cannot be said for KD35, whose skills are unimpeachable yet his power and resonance rests with the story and ideological confirmation he provides the league and countless fans.

Since MJ’s retirement, the league, its marketing partners, and fans alike have pinned for someone to fill his AIR Jordans. Each anointed as the next Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Vince Carter, and Harold Miner (“Baby Jordan”) all failed to deliver because of injuries, limited production, or a combination of both. Each in their own right was imagined as a player who could fill the shoes, whose talents, charisma, and athleticism would propel the NBA during its post-Jordan era. None of them met these expectations resulting in an NBA in continued search for a twenty-first century basketball God.

Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each took the mantle of the next Jordan to places none of the other NMJ (next Michael Jordan) had reached. Kobe, because of his talents, the ways in which he patterned his game and demeanor after Jordan, his quest for rings, and most importantly his competitiveness, all elevated the comparisons, leading many to argue that he was the NMJ. Yet because of Eagle County, Colorado, because of his conflicts with Shaquille O’Neal and the ultimate demise of the Lakers Dynasty, and because he is said to have demanded to get out of Los Angeles, Kobe has fallen short in other’s quest to find the next Michael Jordan. Like Kobe, LeBron James has delivered on the court, dazzling fans with his passing skills, his athleticism, and his ability to make his teammates better. Worse than struggling to secure a title, LeBron James fell short in the MJ sweepstakes when he decided to take his talents to South Beach. Simply exercising his rights of free agency meant that James was no longer eligible for Jordan status within the national imagination.

While possessing the skills, charisma, and baller potential, the two most promising players to lead the NBA, to build upon the global popularity established by Jordan, have fallen short not because of any basketball deficiency, but their inability (or our inability) to fill some mythical shoes. The quest to find the Next Michael Jordan, thus, has nothing to do with basketball but rather is part of an effort to find a player who reinforces popular narratives about the American Dream, the protestant work ethnic, and post-racialness.

Continue reading @ NewBlackMan (in Exile): Kevin Durant and the Myth of Michael Jordan’s America.

REBIRTH OF GEEK: The NBA’s Nerd Swag Reigns – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY

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REBIRTH OF GEEK:

The NBA’s Nerd Swag Reigns

David Leonard

With Kevin Durant and the Oklahoma City Thunder making a serious run for the title this year, interestingly talk has once again turned to his stylistic choices. With debate shows like Around the Horn and First Take, not too mention various content starved sports writers, pining for anything to debate, much has been made about Durant’s clothing choices. Watching Durant, along with Russell Westbrook, LeBron James, and Dwyane Wade at live post-game press conferences has become the NBA’s version of the red carpet. Part shock and awe, part celebration of the players’ purported back turning on hip-hop styles, and part curiosity, no piece of clothing has been left unremarked upon, making me wonder if Joan Rivers has a future on ESPN.

Noting how players wear “gingham and plaid and velvet, bow ties and sweater vests, suspenders, and thick black glasses they don’t need,” Wesley Morris celebrates their stylistic stances against racial stereotypes. It ain’t just an outfit, it’s an effort to stomp out racial bigotry: “Their colors conflict. Their patterns clash. Clothes that once stood as an open invitation to bullies looking for something to hang on the back of a bathroom door are what James now wears to rap alongside Lil Wayne. Clothes that once signified whiteness, squareness, suburbanness, sissyness, in the minds of some NBA players no longer do.”

Similarly, Sean Gregory identifies his clothing choices as a window into his broader appeal and demeanor: “In Durant, African-Americans are blessed with an ideal front man: a seemingly humble superstar” evidence by his “refusal to play the part of ego-driven hoops celeb” as well as clearly his propensity to wear glasses rather than chains, a backpack rather than headphones, and sweater in lie a hoodie. If you didn’t know that plaid and mismatched colors was a sign of humility and a lack of ego, now you know.

Commenting about the popularity of non-prescription glasses from NBA stars, Dave Hyde furthered the links between “nerds” and the sort of “style” embraced by several NBA stars: “That’s just it. No one’s sure what the statement these frameless glasses are other than, well, Urkel-R-Us. . . . .But wear the non-glass glasses? You don’t need to understand fashion to recognize a nerdy idea when it hits you right between the eyes.”

The efforts to celebrate “nerd style” are wrapped up in larger questions of identity. For several commentators, it is punctuates an expanded definition of Blackness (in the tradition of Touré’s post-Blackness theories) available in contemporary America. Under this logic our changing world allows for Allen Iverson and Kevin Durant, Kanye West and Little Wayne, Brittney Griner and Nicki Manaj, Michelle Obama and Cory Booker to exist under a larger umbrella of blackness. According to Touré, “I see [Black irony] in NBA star Kevin Durant’s penchant for nerd chic, wearing glasses and a schoolboy backpack and thereby taking the air out of the Black male imperative to be masculine, tough, and cool.”

Continue reading @ REBIRTH OF GEEK: The NBA’s Nerd Swag Reigns – Entertainment & Culture – EBONY.

NewBlackMan: No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era

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NewBlackMan: No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era

No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era

by David Leonard | NewBlackMan

The NBA lockout is over. With the players and the owners having reached an agreement, basketball will return beginning Christmas Day. Ushering in substantial structural changes to the league, which will likely restrict player movement and constrain middle-class player salaries, the NBA lockout will also go down in history as an end to the search for the next Michael Jordan. Since MJ’s retirement, the league, its marketing partners, and fans alike have pinned for someone to fill his AIR Jordans. Each anointed as the next Michael Jordan, Penny Hardaway, Grant Hill, Vince Carter and Harold Miner (“Baby Jordan”) all failed to deliver because of injuries, limited production, or a combination of both. Each in their own right was imagined as a player who could fill the shoes, whose talents, charisma, and athleticism would propel the NBA during its post-Jordan era. None of them met these expectations resulting in an NBA in continued search for a twenty-first century basketball God.

Kobe Bryant and LeBron James each took the mantle of the next Jordan to places none of the other NMJ (next Michael Jordan) had reached. Kobe, because of his talents, the ways in which he patterned his game and demeanor after Jordan, his quest for rings, and most importantly his competitiveness, all elevated the comparisons, leading many to argue that he was the NMJ. Yet because of Eagle County, Colorado, because of his conflicts with Shaquille O’Neal and the ultimate demise of the Lakers Dynasty, and because he is said to have demanded to get out of Los Angeles, Kobe has fallen short in other’s quest to find the next Michael Jordan. Like Kobe, LeBron James has delivered on the court, dazzling fans with his passing skills, his athleticism, and his ability to make his teammates better. Worse than struggling to secure a title, LeBron James fall short in the MJ sweepstakes when he decided to take his talents to South Beach.

While possessing the skills, charisma, and baller potential, the two most promising players to lead the NBA, to build upon the global popularity established by Jordan, have fallen short not because of their basketball talents but their inability (or our inability) to fill mythical shoes. The quest to find the Next Michael Jordan, thus, has nothing to do with basketball but rather is part of an effort to find a player who reinforces popular narratives about the American Dream, the protestant work ethnic, and post-racialness.

Jordan, only seen in public in his basketball uniform or a $3,000-dollar suit, Jordan embodied the politics of racial respectability on and off the court. He “allow[ed] us to believe what we wish to believe: that in this country, have-nots can still become haves; that the American dream is still working” (Ken Naughton quoted in Andrews 2000, p. 175).

continue reading @ NewBlackMan: No Heir Jordan: The NBA Lockout and the End of an Era.

NewBlackMan: Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

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Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?

by David J. Leonard | NewBlackMan

In recent weeks, LeBron James decided to take his talents to a high school gym in Los Angeles, Kobe Bryant, Chris Paul and a number of other NBA players decided to take their talents to the Philippines and Kevin Durant took his talents to Rucker Park. On, August 2, Kevin Durant dropped 66 during a Rucker Park game. For the footage I was able to watch, it wasn’t an average 66 but a performance that included several thrilling dunks, smooth drives to the basket, and a sick number of three pointers over at times three “defenders.” His performance wowed an excited crowd and has mesmerized fans on YouTube (almost 600,000 views for one video of his performance). Marc Berman describes the scene as a reminder of how “how much the hardcore fans still love this game, why it matters, why an NBA season can not be lost so billionaires can get a sweetheart deal.” Emphasizing the context of the lockout, Berman illustrates how this was not just another July game at the Rucker.

It was quite a basketball doubleheader on Monday – covering the lockout labor talks at a ritzy midtown hotel on 52nd Street and Park Avenue, then cabbing it 100 blocks uptown to Harlem for Kevin Durant.

More than 2,500 fans jammed into Rucker Park – standing room only on 155th street and 8th Avenue. The 6-11 OKC superstar played for free and the fans of the EBC Rucker League watched for free, but what they saw was priceless.

Going from the disillusioning labor talks and the dour David Stern bashing the Players Association to Monday night’s basketball bedlam in Harlem was a shot in the arm for this basketball scribe.

The game was living and breathing and still pure, with fans screaming their lungs out, jumping up and down in their metal bleacher seats, almost every time Durant brought the ball up court. Durant, wearing the orange of DC Power, dumped a near EBC Rucker record 66 points on the Sean Bell All-Stars . . ..

Durant was not done. For his encore, he scored a mere 41 in a pro-Am game at Baruch College once again reminding fans around the globe of the amazing talents of NBA stars. Yet, this performance was overshadowed by the efforts of John Lucas III, who netted 60 in that game.

Durant has not been the only one ballin’ this summer. LeBron James played at in the Drew Summer League dropping 33 points at the Leon H. Washington Park gym, which is located in the heart of Watts, California. Casper Ware described the situation as “a great experience.” Challenging the media demonization of LeBron, the senior guard from Long Beach State was immensely complementary of James: “He was still passing even though he was LeBron. He just wanted me to play my game. He told me, ‘Don’t stand around and just throw me the ball. Play your game. I can get mine. Play your game and don’t change for me.’ He was very cool and down to earth. You could talk to him like any other player.” From coast to coast, NBA basketball fans have been treated to the greatness of the league.

Continue reading at NewBlackMan: Taking Their Talents to the Rucker, Watts and Manila: What Lockout?.