Most Grounded Superstar, that’s what I call Kevin Durant. TNT’s Kenny Smith said on the air last week that in three years, he’ll be the best player in the NBA, the Most Valuable Player. I don’t know if that will happen, but I sure hope it does. Here are some quotes that show how well-grounded he is. After a community event where he assisted a family on a grocery shopping spree…

http://www.nba.com/thunder/news/durant_takes_one_lucky_family__2010_03_13.html

“All they were going after was junk food,” Durant said later, grinning. “That’s something I remember when I was growing up. All I wanted was junk food, too. It was pretty funny.” 

And how he gives autographs to kids from his neighborhood who knock on his front door (link is below)…

“A lot of kids come to my door asking for autographs or just want to talk,” Durant said before Friday’s Game 6 of a West first-round series against the Lakers at the Ford Center. “That’s pretty cool, especially around playoff time. A lot of kids like to come around and stuff. I guess they’re on spring break.”

“No,” he said. “Because if I was a little kid and I knew an NBA player lived down the street, I’d do the same thing.”

Read the whole article at: Knock, Knock! Kevin Durant Really Is Here — NBA FanHouse

I’ve found Da’Sean Butler’s evil twin! His name is Aubrey Coleman.

Boy, was I disappointed to see what I saw from him. I was eagerly anticipating a courtside look at the NCAA’s leading scorer at 25.6 ppg. What I got was, quite simply, a ball hog. At first, he came out and drilled a few shots, scoring 7 of his team’s first 11 points. It was clear that he was trying to put his stamp on the game. From there, it went horribly downhill.

According to my statkeeping, which Dream Leaguers will generally tell you is pretty accurate, I have Coleman down for five turnovers instead of the official Portsmouth scorekeeper’s innocuous three, four of them coming in the first half. It’s clear that I’ll need a separate blogpost to explain the discrepancies, but let me sum it up: Portsmouth still keeps stats as if the game is a college game. That means you have fewer assists, steals and turnovers going to the wrong people, fewer blocked shots, and rebound tips that are credited to the wrong people. It all makes sense if you watch the NBA a lot. If you ask my scorekeepers who implement our NBA format in Dream League, you’ll understand why the NCAA way of taking stats, like their refereeing, is just too “by the book”.
read more from "Portsmouth prospecting: Hey Aubrey Coleman, no ballhogs allowed (NBA)"

Congrats to Dream League friend Steve Lavin on taking the high-profile position at St. John’s. He gets mocked for his slicked-back hair in resemblance to Pat Riley, but the resemblance I’d like to point out is that he’s one of those rare coaches going from la-la land to the concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

In the NBA, when you think of LA, you think of the Lakers and for NYC, you think of the Knicks. In the NCAA, it’s UCLA and St. John’s.

When Riley pulled off the coast-to-coast change of scenery, he managed to take the Knicks to the NBA Finals after doing so with the Lakers.

Remember, Lavin’s UCLA teams were quite successful. We wish him well in rejuvenating the St. John’s program.

Do the Riley shuffle, Steve!

Dream League’s ties with Coach Lavin can be traced back to our Year of the Yao screenings. We tracked down local San Franciscan Willie Wong to be a VIP guest, which then pointed to Cappy Lavin, Steve’s father and who along with Wong played at USF under the legendary Pete Newell. Cappy introduced us to Steve and we’ve been keeping in touch ever since.

If you noticed Jeremy Lin’s name being mentioned on ESPN by Lavin these past two years, now you know why.

On the various rec league teams you’ve played on, how many of your past and present teammates would’ve apologized to you and the rest of the team for dropping 30 on an opponent? Well, that’s Da’Sean Butler of West Virginia, according to his coach Bob Huggins yesterday, after Butler went down with a scary knee injury vs Duke. Here’s what Huggins said (among a slew of other praises that you should definitely check out), from dsportsdaily’s XLTweet …

“And then his junior year, I think the first exhibition game, he got 36 or 38, and he was in the locker room apologizing that he shot the ball too much, he didn’t get his teammates involved.”

Butler sounds like a consummate teammate.

Incidentally, with his name not even listed on most draft boards to begin with, his draft hopes may have plummeted with this ill-timed injury. Butler was to have attended the Portsmouth Invitational this Wednesday, but I don’t see that happening now. Even if his knee remains diagnosed as “just” a sprain, he’d be hesitant to go hard on it, if we’re talking about the next 7 days.

It’s all speculation at this point, but in perhaps the best-case scenario, he’ll heal quickly and get another shot in front of scouts — regardless of whether or not he’s drafted — at NBA Summer League. His game reminds me of a poor man’s Steve Smith. A bit too upright in his oncourt stance, but very, very crafty.

Been meaning to post this for some time, but the (temporary?) departure of Zydrunas Ilgauskas from the Cleveland Cavaliers now makes it worth mentioning.

How about this for an “all-decade” team: Kobe Bryant and Paul Pierce in the backcourt (I guess Kobe would have to play point), Dirk Nowitzki at the wing, and Tim Duncan and Z down low?

Well, according to The Truth’s blog (yes, he has one!), posted back in December, these five were the only five that have been on the same team for the past ten years. Wow! Not bad.

Z can still be part of this five since his trade to the Wizards doesn’t change the fact that he’s been with the Cavs for over a decade, but it’s a tad different now, this “all-decade” lineup.

Anyways, Pierce writes…

I remember a couple years ago — the summer I signed an extension — I was talking with my mom and my brother about the possibility of going to play in other cities, maybe trying to win somewhere else. It was something that I was always talking about with the people closest to me. And it was crazy because my mom said to me, “You’ve already started building something special over there in Boston.”

I had great friends here, knew the restaurants, the hotels, the club owners. I was really comfortable, you get so used to it. When I moved from Oakland to LA — I think I was 8 or 9 years old — and it was traumatic because I thought I lost everything I knew, all my friends all the relationships I had built. It’s like you’re starting over, and you think about that.