Welcome back to the Accelerus Podcast with Kevin Durant. As always, I am Eddie Gonzales. I'm joined by the captain of the Eastern Conference All-Star team, Kevin Durant. So, do you got a draft board or do you leave in the war room? You picking Kyrie first? Like, what's the plan here? Are you ready or are you prepared?

See, Shams might break that info right now. If I mention it on my first pitch. No, but I'm actually looking forward to that draft. You know, shit, you looking at all of those All-Star players, all the same players that you choose from should be fun.

I'm excited, man. It could make for a dramatic first couple of rounds, you know, with the point guards on the board with the big fellas. It's a lot going on here. So, it's going to be fun to watch. I'm happy for you, congrats.

Some doubts coming into the season. I know you don't care and I know you can't. You can't be like, oh, you know, forget those people. But I was feeling away. And I remember maybe about a year ago, maybe a little longer. You were showing me videos. You were just starting to kind of finally shoot around and finally dribble, finally drunk. And I remember how excited you were. So, I'm happy we've come this far in that journey. So, congrats. Happy for you, man. Can't wait to see it.

So, without further ado, I'll get to our guest. We want to tread lightly here with this guy. He's a little older. You want to make an enemy of this guy. This is to me, the premier NBA reporter in the world, the only guy who's tapped into all the front offices in the league and the front office of the country.

So, I'm Serania from the athletic and how you doing? So, I'm how's it going over there?

And I'm good. I appreciate the intro. Eddie, I got my check is going to be definitely coming to your mail.

But I'm good. I'm good. Just trying to stay warm. I'm sure just like you guys trying to stay trying to stay healthy trying to stay warm trying to stay busy. And like this last year, if you're staying busy, you know, you're probably in a good place. So, just like you guys is trying to stay busy.

Busy day for you in the last 24, 48 hours here. You broke the internet again. Congrats.

How does a scoop like that come to you at seven or nine o'clock at night on a Sunday? Well, games are going on. Like your phone just starts ringing all crazy or what's going on?

Yeah. I mean, for me, you just got to be on alert at all times. You just got to be kind of ready, locked and loaded to get into whatever call conversation text message that you can be in.

And so, it's just being by your phone. I've gotten texts as late as one, 32 in the morning about stuff. I remember when Kauai got traded to Toronto. That happened super late. That was, honestly, I was knocked out on my couch.

It was like a normal Thursday. I just come back from from summer league. And I was just chilling on my couch. It was like one 30 in the morning. I wake up at, you know, at like two, you know, it was a quick little nap.

And the text was, you know, Kauai is going to Toronto. And so you just never know. I think that just speaks to the league, you know, the place the league is in right now. Or like, you know, everyone's kind of just on edge.

As you edge of the toes at all times, I think it's good for for the game, at least for for the media side. And then obviously for the players and teams.

So when did you start following the NBA? And when did you want to become what you are right now?

So I follow the NBA my whole life. But, you know, I played in high school early, got cut sophomore year. But unlike, you know, I'm not going to cut and then continue to play. I just didn't have that in me.

The talent to do that. But I always love, I always love the NBA, even more so than college, really. I was never really watching college much going up.

I just love the NBA. I was always fixate on that. And I'm like, man, if I can't play in the league, I got to do something around the game, whether it's writing.

I want to be, you know, you know, in the fun officer agent at one point in my life, kind of in high school. But my passion was always writing, right?

So you always try to put your passions together. And so for me, it was putting, putting writing in with my passion of basketball. And just I started doing a bull's blog when I was 17. So junior in high school that turned into.

I was writing for real jam.com. You get a story here and there and you just start to, I think, progress. And, I mean, just like, just like you spend any time in the gym, like you, you put in as much repetition as you put in.

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