<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> UITLAND, Md. ? The cell phone permanently tethered to Taras Brown's belt loop buzzed at 10 o'clock the morning of Christmas Eve. He had been expecting the call. ?Where are we going?? Kevin Durant asked from the other end of the line. Durant, the phenomenal freshman in the early throes of what would become a record-setting season at Texas, was back in his old stomping grounds on a rare sabbatical from his day job as perhaps the most astounding 18-year-old basketball player on the planet. The Longhorns had lost at Tennessee in overtime the afternoon before, the team's last game before breaking for the holidays. Durant had played well on his way to 26 points but was in no mood for hot cocoa and caroling. So he called Brown, his longtime basketball yogi, and requested a meeting. The two convened at a gym in nearby Capital Heights, where Durant spent the first morning of his Christmas vacation perfecting his footwork in the low post. ?That's Kevin,? Brown says now, chuckling. ?He didn't want to take a break. He's home for Christmas, and he wants to work out.? Watching Durant play these days, as he toys with the Big 12 as easily as a cat with a mouse, it's easy to think of him as a natural-born scorer. Twenty-eight games into his college career, Durant is leading his conference in scoring (24.7 points per game) and rebounding (11.3 per game). He has topped 30 points seven times and 20 points 23 times, taking dead aim at becoming college basketball's first freshman player of the year and, someday soon, a top-2 NBA draft pick. Durant has God-given skills, to be sure. He can leap like an over-caffeinated grasshopper. His jump shot could be framed and hung in the Louvre. At 6-foot-9 with a wingspan like a Learjet, Durant looks like something custom-ordered out of a basketball catalog. Durant, however, is no accidental superstar. His path from the suburbs of Washington, x D.C., to the doorstep of NBA fortune is sticky with his own blood and sweat. ?We always told him hard work pays off,? says Durant's mother, Wanda Pratt. ?He's been working hard since before he arrived in Austin, so we knew he was going to be successful.? </div> Source
