Durant is new kid in town

The little boys and girls carrying gifts of cookies knock on the big bronze door wanting to meet the new kid on the block.

Wanda Pratt answers and says her son isn't home, but she'll have him call if they leave their names and number.

That night, 10-year-old Michael Krebs, one of the boys in the group, tells his parents to expect a call from Kevin Durant, and his father gives him one of those "Yeah, right" looks.

A few days later the phone rings. It's Durant, the Sonics rookie, the No. 2 pick in the spring's NBA draft, the 19-year-old basketball prodigy, the so-called savior of the Seattle franchise. And he's asking for Michael.

"He really wasn't, like, fazed or anything, and he was just talking to me like I was one of his friends from school," Durant says. "I said, 'What are you doing?' He said he was playing video games. I asked him, 'What game are you playing?' and things like that.

"To be honest, he really rushed me off the phone. He said, 'I'm playing video games.' Then I said, 'Do you want to go back to playing video games?' And he said, 'Yeah, I'll give you a call later,' and hung the phone up. But I could tell that he was happy that I called."

A few days later, the kids return to the same Mercer Island home with pastries and a request. The boys want autographs, but one little girl doesn't have anything for Durant to sign, so he goes into his bedroom and digs out a photo that he keeps for a special occasion.

"The really sweet part of it is she sent him a thank-you note in the mail," says Pratt, Durant's mother.

"I told them they could come in the house and asked if they wanted to look around, but they didn't want to," Durant says. "I could tell they were kind of nervous. It's not a problem to me if they come over. If a little kid wants to play video games, they can come over. I really wouldn't mind.

"I like the kids. I don't think they know I've got video games. If they came over and it's cool with their parents and they live on my street, then they can come over. That's what I like about where I live and Seattle in general. It's real comfortable like that."

He's settling in now. The teenaged basketball star is growing accustomed to his surroundings.

He's here, for now

Who knows if he'll become a fixture in the Pacific Northwest. The team is attempting to break its KeyArena lease and move to Oklahoma City for the start of the 2008-09 season. Even if those attempts are unsuccessful, there's no plan for the Sonics to remain in Seattle beyond the 2009-10 season when the lease expires.

Given the dim forecast, it's curious why Durant purchased a $2.8 million Mercer Island home he shares with his mother and cousins Charlie Bell, 24, and Charles Johnson, 27.

The Sonics rookie considered buying Ray Allen's posh digs in Carnation, but his family wanted him closer to the city.

"It was kind of far out," Pratt said. "We wanted something for him to be more comfortable commuting back and forth. Ray Allen's house — oh, my goodness! — it was a really exceptional home. I was very impressed with the things that he had done."

Said Durant: "When I'm making Ray Allen money, then I'll have a house like that. But for now, I'm good where I'm at."

When he might have chosen trendy Belltown or upscale Bellevue, the 19-year-old millionaire bachelor spent about a month house-hunting before choosing the exclusive island suburb across Lake Washington from downtown Seattle. He shares a neighborhood with Paul Allen, but Durant doesn't live on the water like the Microsoft billionaire. Instead, his spacious Tudor home is tucked away on a wooded cul-de-sac where jack-o'-lanterns decorate nearly every driveway and kids play in the streets.

"It's much nicer than where I grew up, but it took me back to when I was younger," said the Washington, D.C., native. "I used to every day go outside and play with my friends. Me being in Texas and living away from home in high school, I really didn't see that too much.

"But once I got to Mercer Island, it reminds me of my childhood and makes me feel right at home. I'm not homesick or anything. I feel right at home. I feel like I've been here forever. It's kind of relaxing a little bit to see those kids out there."

Just a few years ago, Durant was one of the kids that he talks about.

"He was very thin for his age," Taras Brown remembers. "Long legs and slender arms. Not much different from how he is now."

Durant was 9 years old and new to basketball when Brown first knew him. During the next several years, Brown, who coached a local AAU team at a nearby community center, became his Mr. Miyagi.

"In a basketball sense, he raised me," Durant said. "He'd have me do crazy things. Run laps. Run hills. Run all sorts of drills. He didn't like me playing pickup games or things like that."

Said Brown: "Kevin wanted to learn. That's the great thing about him. He soaked it all up. I was hard on him. I used to kick him out of the gym because I thought he wasn't working hard enough. Most kids wouldn't have come back. He always came back and worked harder the next day."

A spectacular junior season (19.6 points, 8.8 rebounds per game) at prestigious Oak Hill Academy in Virginia propelled Durant to the national spotlight. He returned home to Suitland, Md., for his senior year in 2005-06 and led nearby Montrose Christian School to a No. 9 ranking in the USA Today poll.

From college to NBA

The next season proved to be even brighter as Durant claimed every national player-of-the-year award during a freshman season at Texas and led the Longhorns to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

"Success isn't something that's new to him, so in that sense I'm not worried," Sonics coach P.J. Carlesimo said. "It's everything else that scares me. The fact that the guys you're playing against are bigger, stronger and quicker than the guys you played against your entire life. You're playing games in college, and other than an all-star game or an occasional NCAA game, there's only an NBA player or two in the game.

"Literally the biggest difference in this league is the size of the player. These guys are bigger, stronger, quicker than everybody else that plays this game. You're pounding on those guys every day in practice and they're pounding on you. It wears on you, especially young guys."

It's that reasoning that leads Carlesimo to think Durant is best suited to play shooting guard, at least early in his career.

"We try to protect him from a minutes standpoint," Carlesimo said. "We try to protect him in where we play him and how we match him up. How we use him. How many consecutive minutes he plays.

"It's not like we have somebody out there who doesn't know what he's doing. He does. But I think we've got to make sure he doesn't get beaten up by the league, by the size and by all that he has to go through."

Durant's agent, Aaron Goodwin, is taking a similar approach off the court. Durant is the most marketable rookie, but he has been selective in choosing the companies he endorses and has signed multiyear deals with Nike, Gatorade and EA Sports.

Goodwin adheres to a less-is-more philosophy, which he has also used effectively with clients LeBron James and Gary Payton.

Payton was also taken No. 2 overall by the Sonics, in 1990.

"I've been where this kid is at, and I know what he's going through and like I told him, just be yourself and take it slow," Payton said. "Everybody is going to try to put things on him early. They are going to want him to be this or to win this many games, but you've got to realize that he can't do that.

"He's just a rookie. And there ain't been too many of them, you can probably count on one hand, that's won anything or even led their team to the playoffs."

The Sonics, however, are in need of a savior. They finished the 2006-07 season with a 31-51 record and have missed the playoffs in four of the past five seasons.

They need someone to become the face of the franchise after Allen was traded to Boston and Rashard Lewis was dealt to Orlando. And with chairman Clay Bennett turning off a dwindling fan base with persistent talk of relocation and the team's battles with the city turning into a public-relations nightmare, the Sonics need a savior more than ever.

"I know what people want. I hear things, read things, and people have told me things about what's happening with the team and all that," Durant said. "But all I can control is me. That other stuff is not me. I can control getting better every day.

"If you're asking me if I like Seattle, well, I love Seattle. I do. I really think of it as like my second home. But I can't control what happens with anything except for me."

Percy Allen: 206-464-2278 or pallen@seattletimes.com

Information in this article, originally published Oct. 29, 2007, was corrected Oct. 29, 2007. A previous version of this story contained an error. Sonics newcomer Kevin Durant has purchased a $2.8 million home on Mercer Island. The original version of this story erred in saying that he was only renting it.