{"id":3417,"date":"2014-05-07T00:00:26","date_gmt":"2014-05-07T04:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/?p=3417"},"modified":"2014-05-07T01:28:24","modified_gmt":"2014-05-07T05:28:24","slug":"kevin-durant-wins-first-career-nba-mvp-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/2014\/05\/kevin-durant-wins-first-career-nba-mvp-award.html","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant wins first career NBA MVP Award"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kevin<\/a>
Kevin Durant, 2014 NBA MVP (Photo courtesy of NBA)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Tuesday, Kevin Durant won his first career NBA Most Valuable Player award. His acceptance speech has quickly become the source of great inspiration across the country. Durant is truly a unique soul in a league where the biggest names rarely display such authentic humility.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve had the chance to interview Durant a couple of times over the past few seasons. In this composite of those conversations, he gives credit to spiritual leaders such as his mother and his former teammate (and current Connecticut head coach) Kevin Ollie for leading him down the right path and talks about his desire to honor God in everything he does:<\/p>\n

Chad Bonham: What did you take away from the 2012 NBA Finals? Did you appreciate the accomplishment of dethroning the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals or were you mostly disappointed that you fell short against the Miami Heat?<\/p>\n

Kevin Durant: You can\u2019t take that stuff for granted. People play in this league for 15 years and never make it to the Finals. We did it with a bunch of young guys. It was a great experience for us. We really enjoyed going through that. It was really fun.<\/p>\n

Bonham: How have you grown as a leader since coming so close to an NBA championship?<\/p>\n

Durant: Experience is the best teacher. I\u2019ve been through a lot\u2014going to the Olympics, going to the Finals, having a lot of good games and having a lot of bad games. It\u2019s a rollercoaster ride and I\u2019m just happy I\u2019m a part of it. If it was easy, then everybody could do it. I\u2019ve learned so much about myself and about my game, and I just keep growing every single year. It\u2019s fun that I get to live out my dream every single day. It\u2019s a blessing. I can\u2019t lose sight of that and I\u2019ve just got to keep pushing.<\/p>\n

Bonham: What is the foundation of your strong faith?<\/p>\n

Durant: It comes from my family. I went to a Christian school. I was always intrigued simply about how we got here. Why do we do the things we do? Who made us like this? My mom always sat me down and talked to me and I have spiritual teachers that help me out. I\u2019m not perfect at all by any means. I\u2019ve got a long way to go to become closer to the Lord but hopefully I can continue to stay on the path. I might take a few steps forward and take a couple steps back and take some steps forward, but I want to get better.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Talk about how Kevin Ollie influenced you when he played in Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n

Durant: He\u2019s unbelievable. He got everybody going (to chapel) and wanting to learn more. I was just one of the guys who was trying to follow his lead. He was a big teacher in helping me do that and making me feel more comfortable in my faith around other people and being able to pray for other people and pray out loud and things like that; take those baby steps. I\u2019ve been trying to do a better job.<\/p>\n

Bonham: Are you encouraged to see a greater number of Christians\u2014guys like Derek Fisher, John Salmons, Kyle Korver, Chris Paul, Stephen Curry, and Luke Ridnour\u2014becoming more vocal about their faith?<\/p>\n

Durant: It\u2019s unbelievable to know. It\u2019s good to see other people walk with the Lord too. We do so much in this league. A lot of people don\u2019t know how they got these gifts and how they\u2019re portraying them on the floor. It\u2019s always good to let people know where all this stuff came from. To see other players in the league doing the same thing is a joy.<\/p>\n

Bonham: People always talk about how down-to-earth you are. What\u2019s your secret to staying humble in a world where it\u2019s all too easy to get caught up in the hype of fortune and fame?<\/p>\n

Durant: It\u2019s tough man. I can\u2019t lie. I can\u2019t lie about that. But I always kind of pinch myself and say that any day this can be gone. In the Bible, (it says) the Lord exalts humility and that\u2019s one thing I try to be all the time\u2014when I\u2019m talking in front of people or when people tell me I\u2019m great, I (remind myself that I) can always be better. I always work on what I have now. I\u2019ve just got to be thankful to the Lord for what the gifts He\u2019s given me. My gift back to Him is to always be humble and to always try to work as hard as I can. I\u2019ve got to continue to be that way. I know that if I try to get a big head, my mom is going to do a great job of bringing me back down to size. I have the best of both worlds with the coaches we have here and my parents and my family doing it back at home. I\u2019m in pretty good hands.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday, Kevin Durant won his first career NBA Most Valuable Player award. His acceptance speech has quickly become the source of great inspiration across the country. Durant is truly a unique soul in a league where the biggest names rarely display such authentic humility. I\u2019ve had the chance to interview Durant a couple of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":418,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[387,3,578,686,687,382,6,5,4],"tags":[1107,897,40,41,34,845,13,1370,68,1369,37,35,658,1371],"class_list":["post-3417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-basketball","category-christian-athletes","category-olympic-athletes","category-playoffs","category-postseason","category-qa","category-sports","category-sports-features","category-sports-news","tag-chris-paul","tag-connecticut-huskies","tag-derek-fisher","tag-john-salmons","tag-kevin-durant","tag-kevin-ollie","tag-kyle-korver","tag-luke-ridnour","tag-miami-heat","tag-mvp","tag-nba","tag-oklahoma-city-thunder","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-stephen-curry"],"yoast_head":"\nKevin Durant wins first career NBA MVP Award - Inspiring Athletes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kevin Durant wins first career NBA MVP Award - Inspiring Athletes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"On Tuesday, Kevin Durant won his first career NBA Most Valuable Player award. 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Chad\u2019s professional journey began at the University of Tulsa where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (1993) while working extensively in athletic media relations and serving as a sports editor for The Collegian. Since then, he has written extensively for such publications as Relevant, CCM, Christian Retailing, New Man, Charisma, Today\u2019s Christian, Ministries Today, Breakaway, Brio, Sports Spectrum, Christian Single, Faith & Friends, Sharing the Victory and Gospel Today. He has authored, co-authored or ghost written and edited 13 books including Life in the Fairway (New Leaf Press), Glory of the Games (Cross Training), Wrestling with God (River Oak), Spiritual Journeys (Relevant) and the four-part Fellowship of Christian Athletes Core Value Series; Excellence, Teamwork, Serving and Integrity (Regal Books). Chad is currently working on five new books including Sooner Legacy, Husker Legacy and Lessons From Sooner Football (Cross Training) as well as The Faith of Stock Car Racing (Judson Press). When he's not writing, Chad lends his efforts to various independent television and film projects. He was the coordinating producer for Choosing Life (2010) and Life Happens (2011). Chad is currently serving as producer on a forthcoming documentary about Super Bowl champion Brian Kinchen. Chad and his wife Amy live in Broken Arrow, Okla., with sons Lance (September 2003), Cole (February 2008) and Quinn (February 2011).","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/author\/cbonham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/418"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3419,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3417\/revisions\/3419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/inspiringathletes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}