The Reason Kevin Durant is so good

[ncthompson11]

I just wanted to point out that by durant not benching 185 has helped him. He obviously has never worried about his strength growing up, instead the fundamentals. He will need to get stronger but if he was not such a great shooter, and more of a slasher he would not have won NCAA player of the year and wouldnt be a top 5 pick. Not being able to get 185 for his size is kind of pathetic but Durant obviously didnt need great lifting strength to dominate the college game but his shotting and ball handling skills were.

He obviously has a great work ethic and really grew up with great coaches who cared about the fundamentals instead of strength like many high school coaches I have seen.

[BusBoyIsBack]

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I just wanted to point out that by durant not benching 185 has helped him. He obviously has never worried about his strength growing up, instead the fundamentals. He will need to get stronger but if he was not such a great shooter, and more of a slasher he would not have won NCAA player of the year and wouldnt be a top 5 pick. Not being able to get 185 for his size is kind of pathetic but Durant obviously didnt need great lifting strength to dominate the college game but his shotting and ball handling skills were.

He obviously has a great work ethic and really grew up with great coaches who cared about the fundamentals instead of

strength like many high school coaches I have seen.

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Morrison and Redick dominated in college too.

And neither tested as poorly as Durant.

[jerrywest]

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I just wanted to point out that by durant not benching 185 has helped him. He obviously has never worried about his strength growing up, instead the fundamentals. He will need to get stronger but if he was not such a great shooter, and more of a slasher he would not have won NCAA player of the year and wouldnt be a top 5 pick. Not being able to get 185 for his size is kind of pathetic but Durant obviously didnt need great lifting strength to dominate the college game but his shotting and ball handling skills were.

He obviously has a great work ethic and really grew up with great coaches who cared about the fundamentals instead of strength like many high school coaches I have seen.

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Good thing he has those long arms. He will be pushed around in defense like Junior high kids.

[ncthompson11]

Hes on a different scale then redick and morrison because of his height. I beleive if donovan would have gone to orlando redick would be starting next year and could easily be a 2nd or 3rd option. Morrison can still be a star if he would quit taking so tough of shots. Durant will be drafted as a number 1 option. Redick and Morrison were not even though they should be one day.

[AHF]

Unlike Morrison and Reddick he is also not one dimensional. He is a fantastic rebounder and a decent shot blocker (which is not to be confused with a great defender at this point in his career).

[Hatertots]

Totally agree with you, NC. He's being drafted to play in the National Basketball Association, not the National Benchpress Association. It's much easier to make a guy stronger than to make him more skilled at basketball.

FWIW, from a physiological standpoint, skinny, lanky guys like Durant have the absolute worst physical attributes for benching: narrow chest and long arms. They have less pectoral to get the job done and a longer distance to move the weight. It's not at all surprising that he didn't perform well on that test.

[BusBoyIsBack]

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Unlike Morrison and Reddick he is also not one dimensional. He is a fantastic rebounder and a decent shot blocker (which is not to be confused with a great defender at this point in his career).

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He will not come close to having the rebounding success he had in college in the NBA.

[ncthompson11]

busboy its tough for a wing guy to average 12 rebounds a game, ill say around 7 or 8.

And i agree with you guys above that said its harder to bench with long arms. I have sort of long arms and its especially tough doing pull ups. I guess the little short guys are lighter and have shorter arms.

[hawk25]

texas s&c program has more to do with the low bench numbers.. lamarcus aldridge struggled in that area also when he came out from what i heard

[ncthompson11]

i doubt the strength program has much to do with it. Obviously they could have done a little bit more to his strength but aldridge and durant are naturally skinny guys as you can tell by their frame and they were both only their for a year, i beleive Aldridge left after one.

[b3bawla]

You are right about that...for the 1st three years or so. But after he puts on 20 pounds of muscle, he'll be 235...about the weight KG and Bosh play at. And by then he'll average close to 10 (and maybe more if the team he plays for plays him at the 4).

[mudderfudder77]

From Chad Fords Blog on this very subject

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Tuesday morning, I listened to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio as he talked about the NBA pre-draft camp testing results.

He said, in a nutshell, that Greg Oden's excellent performance combined with Kevin Durant's poor one in the strength and athletic testing closed the debate on who should be the No. 1 pick in the June 28 NBA draft. It is now, without a doubt, Cowherd argued, Greg Oden.

Cowherd is not the only one who has gotten the testing results and used it as a big hammer in the Oden vs. Durant debate. I've even heard some suggestions that Durant may slip out of the top two now that that the testing results are known.

Here's my take: These results are a very small piece of the puzzle.

These tests have very little to do with basketball skill. They don't measure a player's shooting touch, handle or basketball IQ. Leaping ability is meaningless if the player doesn't know how to get to the basket. No one in the NBA is asked to do a bench press during the game. In fact, core strength is considered much more valuable to prospects.

Want more evidence that the numbers may be meaningless?

Here are the top-rated athletes from the last four combines: Troy Bell, Nate Robinson, Joey Graham and David Noel. Has all of that athletic ability helped any of them dominate the league?

I do think the Blazers will take Oden No. 1 and he'll be an excellent choice -- the testing results appear to support that.

But I think the results are less meaningful in the case of Durant.

As we reported in our visit to Indianapolis to see Oden work out, he is a great athlete. He has explosive leaping ability (they actually tested him with a 38-inch vertical leap there) and great agility, dexterity and lateral quickness. Those are rare attributes for a 7-foot center.

Just as impressive, Oden's testing results are a demonstration of the hard work he's put in with coach Ed Schilling. The notion that Oden is not dedicated to basketball or a hard worker loses currency in the face of these results.

So is Oden a big winner from the testing results? Sure.

In sharp contrast to Oden, Durant finished dead last (No. 78) among the players who completed every test.

How is that possible? Have our eyes really deceived us this whole season? Durant looked like a great athlete at Texas. He looked quick. Why didn't he test that way?

My theory? Unlike Oden and most of the other players who participated in the camp, Durant was not prepared for it.

His agent, Aaron Goodwin, confirmed my view.

"Between school, travel and business opportunities, he has not had an opportunity to work out," Goodwin told me via e-mail.

Durant has not been doing the strength training that so many of the other prospects have been doing for weeks. He has not hired a trainer, and now we see the results of that decision.

I spoke with trainer Tim Grover on Tuesday. Grover worked out Durant in Orlando last week along with his own clients, Julian Wright and Thaddeus Young. Grover said he suspects that Durant just wasn't prepared for the testing.

"He's a very good athlete from what I saw," Grover said. "I think those results are from either not practicing the tests or improper technique. There's no way he should have tested that low. It's not a good indicator of who he is."

Grover said that for someone like Durant, a six-week training period would have improved his results significantly.

"With a guy who hasn't really done a lot of strength training, it's pretty easy to get big results quickly," Grover said. "With guys who have done a lot of work in the weight room, the results come slower."

Much has been made about the fact that Durant couldn't bench press the 185-pound bar a single time. But Grover said that's not entirely unusual for a thin prospect with long arms, such as Durant. Grover said that about six weeks of practice would have resulted in Durant being able to lift the bar five or six times.

He's not the first player to have trouble here. Last year Memphis forward Shawne Williams couldn't lift the bar. Monta Ellis couldn't do it in 2005. Shaun Livingston couldn't do it in 2004. All of those players were young and thin, with long arms. Even a well-built player like Andre Iguodala got the bar up only four times.

Durant's lack of practice likely affected his vertical jump as well.

Many prospects use a machine called the Vertimax to improve their leaping. For example, Nick Young had a 35.5-inch vertical when he began training for the draft. A month later at the camp, he showed a 40.5-inch vertical at the test. That's a significant difference.

Grover said that typically a player can increase his vertical about 3 or 4 inches in a six-week period of training. In Durant's case, that would have improved his vertical from 33.5 to about 37 inches.

Still, even his actual result isn't terrible. Luol Deng had only a 31.5-inch vertical when he tested in 2004. Channing Frye and David Lee both tested lower than that in 2005. LaMarcus Aldridge had just a 34-inch vertical last year.

For Durant, the result of the lane agility drill may have been the most disturbing. Anyone can see Durant needs to add strength. And with Durant's size and reach, his jumping ability is fine. But if he truly lacks lateral quickness, he could have some unforeseen problems.

His 12.33-second performance was one of the worst of all the players. It was flat-out ugly.

Big man Spencer Hawes, whose athleticism has been questioned, beat Durant in the drill. Jared Jordan, whose lack of quickness is considered a major weakness, beat Durant by a full second.

The question of athleticism aside, the results raise the question of whether Durant has become too casual about the draft process and gotten caught up in the NBA lifestyle. With Goodwin talking about business opportunities and travel, it sounds as if Durant has let Oden sneak past him in the one area where everyone thought Durant topped Oden hands down: desire.

But Durant's approach is probably going to change very soon.

"He starts his workouts program after he finishes this last commercial shoot and will be fine when he shows for the two teams he needs to," Goodwin said, referring to Durant's upcoming visits with the Trail Blazers and SuperSonics.

Until then, the question is whether Durant's misstep is the death knell for his quest to be Portland's choice as the No. 1 pick.

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[Bulldog]

what do you think Reggie Miller benches, or Rip Hamilton, or Marcus Camby even..? Durant will put on some muscle and will be fine. McGrady for example was pretty rail thin when he entered the league and has gradually filled out. This is what I expect Durant to do... If the Hawks could get him they should jump and the chance and be ecstatic that he has fallen to them. Having said that he wont. Seattle will pick him, so all of this is fairly redundant...

[Johnnybravo4]

It would be one thing if Kevin Durant did just poorly. He was DEAD LAST. That is amazing. The consensus #2 pick in the draft shouldn't rank dead last in anything.

[AHF]

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Unlike Morrison and Reddick he is also not one dimensional. He is a fantastic rebounder and a decent shot blocker (which is not to be confused with a great defender at this point in his career).

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He will not come close to having the rebounding success he had in college in the NBA.

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I'll bet he averages more RPG than Reddick and Morrison combined next season.

[mudderfudder77]

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It would be one thing if Kevin Durant did just poorly. He was DEAD LAST. That is amazing. The consensus #2 pick in the draft shouldn't rank dead last in anything.

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*I am not comparing him to Larry Bird*

How many of these drills do you think Bird would have not finished last in?

If you can play basketball, you can play basketball. Durant clearly has it.

[Bulldog]

I agree that in one sense it is surprising. But - go on the line then. If Durant is available at #3 - would you pick him - yes or no?

[DJlaysitup]

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...How many of these drills do you think Bird would have

not

finished last in?...

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Yeah, they don't have a three point shooting category. One of my fav Bird quotes (from the all-star 3-point contest)..."Which one of you guys is going to finish second"...then he won it.

I know that's off-topic a bit but I couldn't resist.

[ncthompson11]

I wonder if morrison had done poorly at the combine last year if he would have still been a top 3 pick. Id say out of the top 5.