<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'></p> "Save Our Sonics. Save Our Sonics. Save Our Sonics," the opening-night crowd began chanting midway through the second quarter.</p> Why did it feel like they were talking to Kevin Durant?</p> He was the Sonic making the steal, dribbling from foul line to foul line and hitting a pull-up jumper from 13 feet. He was the Sonic cutting through the lane, slicing past a pair of Phoenix Suns, getting to the basket in a blink and finger-rolling his first of thousands of field goals as a Sonic.</p> Then he dropped a perfect bounce pass to Nick Collison cutting into the lane, ran out on a fast break, beat Raja Bell down the floor and hammered a dunk, then calmly dropped a jumper.</p> In his first six minutes, Durant filled KeyArena with so much promise and energy and quick, slick ballin' we could forget, for a couple of hours, all of the uncertainty swirling like a dust cloud around this franchise.</p> He was the player we came to watch.</p> In the fourth quarter during the Sonics' final mini-run, Durant beat a double team and cut the Suns' lead to 93-90. With 3:48 left, he hit a three over Grant Hill, making it 96-93 Phoenix.</p> As good as he is, his youth showed down the stretch. Durant committed a pair of turnovers in the final three minutes that ended the Sonics' rally.</p> "This is what I expected," he said. "Guys are going to be quick, guys are going to be strong. They get up and down the floor, uptempo. We've got 80 [games] left, so we'll see how it goes."</p> On an opening night that was supposed to feel like a celebration, the angst over the future of this team was evident. For much of the first half, the sellout crowd of 17,072 watched quietly.</p> The only time it got really engaged was when Durant touched the ball. He is the one player who can sustain a hum for hoops in this town.</p> Durant is that rare, once-in-a-generation player who can toy with your imagination. He does so many things well, strings together so many pearls of brilliance, it's hard to imagine just how good the next 20-something years are going to be for him in the league.</p> In his Seattle debut, Durant finished with 27 points and five rebounds, shooting 11 for 23 in the Sonics' 106-99 defeat against the Suns.</p> "For a 19-year-old in his second game in the NBA, he was pretty damn good," coach P.J. Carlesimo said.</p> So much is expected of him -- on the floor, in the locker room, in the community. The second choice in the first round, he is supposed to light up this city like nobody has since Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp.</p> While the courts, the politicians and the movers and shakers argue over this franchise's future, Durant is supposed to keep people pouring into this obsolete arena.</p> "The one place Kevin Durant is always comfortable is on a basketball court," Carlesimo said.</p> A 19-year-old in a man's world, Durant is the heartbeat for a team caught in the middle between staying and going. He is the player many believe can help keep the team in town, just by doing all of the things he can do.</p> "I wouldn't say the fans want me to save it," Durant said before the game. "I think more, with me coming into the league, the media put that on me. With me coming into a new team and new organization, I think they wanted me to be, I guess, the savior, but it's all about a team concept here."</div></p> Source: Seattle Times</p>
