Kevin Durant shows interest in playing overseas; Pays a tribute to Yao Ming: NBA Update
It seems that the promotional tour of China has changed Kevin Durant’s mind on playing overseas.
The Oklahoma City Thunder forward, who has been the league top scorer for the last two seasons, has indicated his interest in playing abroad, if NBA, players union and franchise owners fail to make an accord on new Collective Bargaining
Agreement or CBA.
Last week, New Jersey Nets point guard Deron Williams shook the league when he declared that he has signed one year contract with a Turkish side Besiktas and will play for them if the NBA lockout effects the regular season. After
that, there have been many reports linking some high profile players like Kobe Bryant, Amare’ Stoudemire, Ron Artest and Dwyane Wade to foreign league.
Kevin Durant is the latest in the list of these stalwarts. Talking to the media, he said.
"If not, I will make a decision on where I am going to play basketball. I am going to take it slow; everybody's going to wait to see how this plays out. D-Will, you know, he made his decision quick and I am sure you are going to
see a lot of guys kind of follow his footsteps. So, he's very brave to be the first guy to do it."
Although, Kevin made it very clear that his first priority will always be NBA.
"We'll see, I would like to try something new. But of course, my first option is playing in the NBA. So now I want to see how this lockout goes."
The reason why Durant feels that players will play overseas is because they wouldn’t be having enough savings to survive the lockout. Although there is an issue of insurance, but still decent amount of money can attract any player,
especially when there is uncertainty regarding lockout.
Durant also paid tribute to the legendary Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, and said that it is hard to believe that the Houston Rockets centre is retiring. The 7 ft 6in veteran struggled in the last few years because of injuries.
After sitting out the whole 2009-10 season, Ming played only five games in the 2010-11 season, and that too with a maximum 24 minutes limit, before getting injured again. Although still unofficial, he finally drew the curtain on his career last week.
Durant recollected Yao’s brilliance and said that getting over him used to be every rookie’s dream in his time, 'I want to dunk over Yao Ming.' He also vouched for Ming to be inducted into the NBA Hall of Fame.
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