My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman (2018) s04e05 Episode Script
Kevin Durant
1
[horns honking]
We looking forward to training camp
and starting off this journey there.
[man 1] The, uh, gentleman in the back.
Yes. Uh, Dave, uh, from Basketball Digest.
Kevin, why do people call you KD?
[Kevin] Um
[breezy jazz playing]
-My first name is Kevin, with a K.
-Right.
My last name is Durant with a D.
[Letterman] I just got off the phone
with the Dolan family.
They're talking to the commissioner.
They're looking at working
a contractual deal that will allow you,
when you're not playing
for the Nets, days off,
you'll be able to play for the Knicks.
-Comments?
-All right, Dave. That was the last one.
-[man 2] Wrap it up.
-Wrap it up?
Okay. What about the Pelicans?
When you play the Pelicans,
does it make you giggle?
[chuckles]
-Yeah.
-That's it, everybody. Thank you.
Good job, Dave.
-[Letterman] I'm sorry.
-You let anybody in here.
Hey, I heard that!
[laughter]
[audience cheering]
[theme music playing]
[man speaking indistinctly]
[gentle music playing]
[Letterman] Ladies and gentlemen,
Kevin Durant.
My new friend.
Seven in your score card,
number one in your heart.
-How you doing, sir?
-Have a seat.
[Kevin] Thank you.
-It's a nice view.
-[Letterman] Crazy, isn't it?
-This is where I live.
-Around this area?
Right here.
-Good place.
-You're in my living room.
-What do you think?
-Thanks for inviting me.
Well, you're welcome any time.
Where do you live here?
-You live in Brooklyn?
-Across the bridge.
Across the bridge.
[both] Manhattan.
What about the Knicks?
Did you think about the Knicks?
Nah. I was eyeing Brooklyn.
I have to keep reminding myself
that the Knicks are still in the league.
-What?
-I'm sorry, that's not your problem.
-That's disrespectful.
-I'm sorry. Did I say that?
I like that you did that.
I'm not a Knicks fan.
[laughing]
Wouldn't it be strange,
sitting here, you say
you're really a huge Knicks fan?
-[laughing]
-That's a conflict of interest there.
[atmospheric music playing]
-[Letterman] In Brooklyn, you're seven.
-Mm-hmm.
[Letterman] How'd we get from 35 to seven?
Why change that number?
[Kevin] When I had torn my Achilles,
I wanted to step
into this Brooklyn experience
feeling new, feeling fresh.
I knew my game was gonna be different,
-my body was gonna be different.
-Mm-hmm.
On top of that, all my favorite players
in the league had multiple numbers.
The seven looked so nice
in the black and white.
There's nothing more to seven
symbolically?
It's just a nice-looking single number?
You like how it looks on the shirt?
[Kevin] It signifies a lot of things.
God rested on the seventh day,
meaning that what he created was complete.
Not that it was finished,
meaning it wasn't gonna
continue to evolve,
-but he was done with it at that point.
-Mm-hmm.
So I felt like my game, it is what it is.
I'mma keep sharpening and adding tools,
and keep getting better,
but my overall approach is what it is.
[commentator] He turns, he shoots. Yes!
With one second remaining!
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator] Durant for three.
-[crowd cheering]
[Letterman] Did you change the game,
or was the game in change,
in flux, when you came to it?
Nah. I feel like I helped though.
I wouldn't say I'm the main reason,
but it was on the way.
-You know.
-Moving in that direction?
Yeah, I think some people
help to change the game,
and some of us just play it.
[commentator] Durant, and he goes down
to the seat of his pants.
[Letterman] With a lot of your shots,
you end up on your butt.
Yeah, 'cause my defenders
always wanna smell my cologne.
-They wanna get
-[laughs]
-'Cause I can shoot.
-Yeah.
And I'm tall. So they gotta get
as close as they can, contest my shot.
So, yeah, I'm always on the ground.
I gotta work on that.
And that's legitimate wear and tear on
Would be on anybody's body.
Is You worry about that?
Nah. It's just a part of it.
I saw footage of the Achilles injury.
Now, that must have been crazy painful.
-[Kevin] It wasn't.
-[Letterman] It wasn't?
Nah, nah.
The only thing I felt was the pop.
No kidding?
'Cause you more or less walked off.
There were guys with you,
but you walked off.
[crowd chanting] Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!
[Kevin] Yeah. It obviously felt different.
Like, I felt like I was walking
It's like my foot was on a slant board
-and I was trying to walk.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
It was a weird feeling,
but I didn't feel pain.
When something like that happens,
is the first thought,
"I wonder if this is it for me?"
-Yeah.
-Really? The first thought? That's awful.
-Yeah.
-Yeah. It could have been, couldn't it?
-It could have been.
-Yeah.
Yeah, that's the first thing
that came to my mind.
And, uh, that's why I was just so
um
calm, I guess, and reserved.
Well, I wouldn't even call that calm.
I was
Felt like I was looking in the face
of my basketball death.
Yeah. Yeah. You go down,
it's what you think about.
-Yeah, must be a deeper meaning.
-Yeah.
People have to keep that in mind
when they go to these games,
that these people we're watching perform
at this level are vulnerable.
Yeah, I mean we're human beings.
[Letterman] Yeah. Yeah.
We go through a lot.
We put a lot on the line to go out there.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Letterman] Hello. Hello.
-It's a half-day tomorrow.
-[woman speaks indistinctly]
Kevin.
What's up, Dave?
[Letterman] Nice.
[Kevin] Uh-huh.
I want you to see if you can take
this away from me. Come on.
-I wanna see your jump shot.
-No. Try and take this away from me.
[breezy jazz music playing]
You can't get in here, can you?
Okay, my friend.
Ouch! Look at this.
Come on, come and get me.
Oh!
-[Kevin] You wanna play defense?
-No, I'm just here.
-Why you in front of me then?
-[Letterman laughing]
You're worried, aren't you?
-No, I'm not.
-I have you worried.
I see a gray beard, I'm not used to that.
-[laughing]
-It's a little easier.
Now you sound like my wife.
Oh!
Don't want you to get hurt.
What if you get hurt?
-Me?
-Yeah.
-What if you get hurt?
-[laughs] Nobody cares if I get hurt.
[Letterman] You've got homes in LA,
in New York, in Maryland.
Maryland is your home.
Born and raised there.
I have relatives
who, uh, are from Maryland.
As a kid, you had blue crabs?
Yeah. Crab feasts were were a real thing.
How many do you think you could you eat
on a good day?
-So 96 comes in a bushel.
-Ninety-six crabs in a bushel.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-We've learned something already.
-You didn't know that?
-No, this is fantastic.
-So, out of 96, I could go about 12.
-When was the last time you did that?
It's been a while.
Five years ago, at a family reunion.
-Yeah.
-We got family in South Carolina.
Georgia,
obviously Maryland, all over Maryland, DC.
Yeah, my ancestors set up shop.
And how do they treat you?
Are Are you, "Oh, there's our cousin"?
Or, "Oh my God.
There's megastar Kevin Durant"?
I'll put it like this.
When I was coming up,
the older guys in our family
that went to college
and did great things with their lives,
everybody celebrated them.
-That was just family tradition.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
So, whether it was me, my cousins,
my brother, everybody gets that love,
especially if they haven't seen you
in awhile. That's the beauty of family.
Yeah, I didn't recognize that
until I had a son of my own.
I just was too busy, I overlooked it.
Was that in, like,
the heart of your career?
-The "prime years" of your career?
-Yeah.
How old were you?
I was 57, I think, when I had my child.
So that's a long time
to think that I was so important,
I didn't have room for anything else.
But was work fun? Doing it that way.
That's what the focus was.
I thought it needed that kind of focus.
But now that I've been
away from work, I realize,
ah, it just wasn't that important.
You know?
Uh, but you're in a different situation.
You have a lot more responsibility
to the culture
and to the society than did I.
No. I think you had an important job.
You had to tell the truth.
You had to relay the message
to the people. That's important.
It is important, but, uh,
you don't need to devote
your entire life to that.
I play a kids' game.
-Is that more important?
-Yeah, it is, and I'll tell you why.
When people ask me,
"Who are you talking to next?"
And I said, uh, Kevin Durant,
and everything stops,
because of the effect you have
playing a kids' game.
-[Kevin] Hmm.
-And especially now, to that
Just to elevate the mood
coast to coast and around the world.
And like the Olympics.
You represented this country
three different times.
-Won three different gold medals?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
I credit that to the game of basketball.
People are attracted to the sport.
I just happen to be one of the messengers
at this point.
[Letterman] Did you, as a kid, get to see
the Washington Bullets
before they became the Wizards?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
-Did you go to games when you were a kid?
-I went to one game.
-Do you remember how old you were?
Nine, 'cause I was playing nine-and-under
at that point
at Seat Pleasant Rec Center.
My mom called down to the rec, like,
"Y'all want to go to the game tonight?"
And we lost it.
And so, yeah, I remember the Bullets.
It was one of those moments
where I was like, "I need to"
"I want to go into every one of these
in the country."
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-"Every NBA arena, I need to go in
or play in at some point."
I made that a goal of mine as a kid.
-Have you played in all of them by now?
-Yeah. I have.
[commentator] Durant lines it up.
-Durant! Splash.
-[crowd cheers]
Your mother is still prevalent,
present in your games, isn't she?
Yeah.
She's been the same, at my games
since I was eight years old.
[Letterman] She's the one
that took you to the rec center?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
-[Letterman] And also your brother, right?
[Kevin] Yeah, it was to the point
that we were doing
We were doing our homework one day,
and she was like,
"Stop your homework and let's leave."
"Go play somewhere else.
You can't be in the house all day."
And as I got older, I realized
what she truly meant by that.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-I would have been one of those kids
that just sat in the house
and been cool with that.
I don't get that.
I would have been outside, getting
into stuff around the neighborhood.
But organized sports, I don't know
if I'd have pursued that on my own.
Mm. So all credit to Mom then.
Yeah.
-And my godfather.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
[Kevin] A guy I met at the rec center
when I was eight, taught me how to play.
-He's a part of my inner circle.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-Charles Craig, who I wore 35 for.
-[Letterman] Right, right.
He was also one of those guys
in my close circle before he passed away.
-Passed away at 35?
-Yeah.
Do you have a lot of friends
who are not basketball players?
Yeah. I know a lot of people.
I've run into a lot of people over my time
that I will call friends and family.
New friends as good as old friends?
Old friends always better
than new friends?
I like meeting people, but having someone
that's seen you evolve is just different.
Yeah. What about girlfriends?
Have I had any girlfriends,
is what you asking?
-Do I have one?
-[laughs] Kinda.
-I've had a few.
-Yeah.
I don't have one now.
Uh, here in Brooklyn, a good date,
maybe go play shuffleboard.
-That's a perfect date.
-[laughs]
[breezy instrumental music playing]
What I'm interested in here today,
not so much winning,
although I'm fairly confident I will win,
just because we're novices
At 45%?
-45% may be all I need.
-Oh.
-No offense.
-All right.
-I played once when I was 11.
-May I ask how old you are now?
[laughs] I'm 74.
-That's a long time away from the game.
-[laughing]
-How old are you? I take care of myself.
-Yeah, that is true. I'm 33.
-33, and you've never played.
-Never.
So who you gonna go with?
The guy who's never played
or the guy who's played once?
-I'll say the guy who's played once.
-Thank you.
But I also am 33 and athletic.
That's ageist. I hate to hear that
-coming from a man I admire and love.
-I'm sorry.
-I just had to.
-[Letterman] I get it.
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] These things we play with,
you know what that's called?
What do they call this?
-What do you think?
-A stick.
Yeah, that's what I call it.
No, uh, sir, that's a tang.
-What do you think these are?
-[Kevin] Uh, discs.
That's what I thought,
but according to this,
no, they're biscuits.
Hmm. That is a better name for 'em.
"Pro tip,
always use the tip of your tang
to slide biscuits."
Sounds like we might be talking
about something completely different.
Yeah.
And they also said
to push off the opposite foot
of the opposite hand
that you're shooting with.
Gets you more power and balance.
I never even considered that.
That's a pro tip they gave me over there.
"Trash talk optional." What comes to mind
under these circumstances?
I just gotta see your game.
-Yeah.
-We're both, uh
uh, intermediates.
No, no, no, no.
No, we're higher than that.
-You are?
-Well, I think we both are. Look at us.
Yeah, that is true.
I was giving respect
to the ones that came before us.
We're saluting the great pioneers
of shuffleboard.
-Yep.
-Like, name one.
[deep breath]
Hard to do but there's some good ones.
-Be hard to pick one.
-Yeah.
-Did you have breakfast today?
-I did.
-What'd you have?
-An omelet with some oatmeal.
-Sounds great.
-What about you?
-I haven't eaten yet today.
-Wow.
I was too nervous
about the activity. Honestly.
-You didn't eat?
-No.
That's That's not good for performance.
Well, we'll see.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-[Kevin] Which color you want?
-[Letterman] Black.
[Letterman] You can't use the tang.
-Gotta use the pole.
-I don't want you tossed out.
Sorry. I don't want
to get tossed out of here.
What a heartbreak that'd be.
-That'd be a tough way to finish the show.
-Tossed out of the shuffleboard court.
-So you start.
-No, go ahead.
-Please.
-You're my guest. No, you're my guest.
Please.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-You don't want to go to first?
-I wanna watch you. You the vet.
-I have no idea.
-[Kevin] Hmm.
-You invented this game though.
-[laughs]
[breezy jazz music playing]
Yes!
I got an eight.
-Nah. I think that's the lane number.
-Oh.
This is a little trash talk. "Ooh! Beat"
"Can you Way to go with that biscuit."
[Kevin] On the line.
Now, you push off on this foot
or your right foot?
You got one more game than I have.
You should tell me
which foot I should go off of.
I'm trying to remember what I did
when I was [clears throat] 11.
I don't believe you only played this
one time in your life.
Yeah, I have the look of somebody
who routinely plays, right?
[chuckles] Okay.
Great form. Let me try that.
-[Letterman] Strong.
-[Kevin] It works.
-Oh.
-Oh. Goodnight.
Say goodnight.
All I gotta do
is keep the seven where it is, right,
and I win?
We got eight more
seven more rounds after this.
-We do?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
[laughs]
-Don't sprint your first lap.
-[laughs]
[Letterman] You and I
have many things in common.
Uh, and I know people are saying,
"Where's the remote?"
But, uh, we do.
What do you weigh, 220?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-Me too.
-Really?
-Yeah.
How tall are you?
Six-nine.
Okay.
-Are you at the weight you want to be?
-Yeah, I think so.
And you're never out of shape, are you?
-Yeah, I do get out of shape.
-Really?
I would think that the training schedule,
and, with the Olympics in the off-season,
and then getting ready for the season,
that you're never out of shape.
This game is constantly moving.
-So whenever you stop, the game doesn't.
-Yeah.
So when I take two or three weeks off,
not playing, it takes a little longer
to get back into playing shape,
the shape I want to be in.
I could probably
run up and down the court, but
I want to be in tip-top form,
like end-of-season form.
You're not just running
up and down the court.
No, I'm making I'm using
different muscles in my body
at this point,
that I wasn't realizing
early on in my career.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-Being injured a few times
A few times.
I'm starting to understand
what my body is saying.
I played some basketball when I was a kid.
Played two years
of high school basketball.
What year was that?
[laughs]
In the '60s.
And pretty soon, I realized that I was
gonna be just on the practice squad.
-I was once at that point.
-You were at that point.
Now let me tell you what happened to me,
because it's all really about me,
isn't it?
[both laughing]
Uh, so my second year,
I just would practice and practice.
I got pretty good at just blocking shots.
That's all I could do.
You were the tallest on the team?
No, not by any stretch of the imagination,
but I could leap.
One night, middle of the first quarter,
coach Bob Brown, who nobody liked,
"Letterman, get in there."
And it was like, "Oh, shit, I'm going in."
So I get the ball,
I throw it right back to the guard,
and the opposing team picks it off,
runs down,
it goes in for an extra point and
for a field goal.
And as he goes up, I foul him.
-[Kevin] Mm.
-Yeah.
-That's a tough sequence.
-It is a tough sequence.
Now, who's fault is this?
Yours.
No! It's Bob Brown's.
-Coach Brown.
-Because he threw you in?
He threw me in,
and here's the bad part of it.
Uh, I never played again.
-Aren't you supposed to stay ready?
-I was ready, but I was scared.
Now, as a coach or as a player,
how would you have handled that?
-I probably would have did the same thing.
-[laughs]
One thing you don't want as a coach
is somebody that's nervous.
The pressure made you scared?
Yeah. Have you ever been
frightened by pressure?
I've been anxious.
I wouldn't say frightened.
Anxious and frightened
are different things.
Yes, they are.
Has that been the way
you've played all your life?
-Yeah.
-[Letterman] People used to ask me this,
"Before you go to work, are you scared?"
And, uh, no, I was never scared.
I was excited, and I'm getting
that that's what you're talking about.
-Definitely excited.
-Yeah.
'Cause when you can control something
I know how to control myself out there
on the floor.
I feel like I can dictate a lot out there.
That's fun, knowing that you got
that type of control.
Let's say you're down a few points.
Still fun?
-Yeah.
-And you don't quit if you're down?
-No.
-[Letterman] Keep going?
No. I mean,
I've been in 890 games, I think.
880 games, my career, and I done played
in every situation, I felt like.
-Double overtimes.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
Being down 20, winning,
coming back and winning.
Being up 20 and losing.
Is it better to play mad
when you're playing basketball?
-Do you have to play angry?
-That used to be my approach.
It was hard for me to get angry
'cause I'm not really
one of those people to get angry,
but I noticed when I was mad
that I would play a little bit better.
When you angry,
it's kind of hard to cut it on and off.
When I'm talking to my teammates
and when I'm playing against my opponents,
I gotta be
I gotta be two different people.
So I don't know,
I just try to stay even-keeled now.
Not get too upset
or too high or too low at anything.
But as a younger player,
I definitely played off emotions
a little bit more.
-[crowd cheering]
-[announcer speaking indistinctly]
Tell me some guys that you really
don't want to have anything to do with.
You don't need to name names,
just give me the team and the number.
[laughs]
I like everybody.
[laughs]
-Really?
-Yeah, I do, actually.
Do you like your coaches?
I've never had a problem with my coaches.
We're talking about high school coaches.
-Mm-hmm.
-Rec center coaches,
college, then we go three different
professional coaches, right?
Yeah.
So this tells me that you're, uh
you know how to get along
in a wide variety of situations.
-I've had some run-ins with coaches.
-Like, describe a run-in.
-Disagreements.
-Over what kind of things?
Over how something should be done.
Like what?
A play that maybe been ran
or a decision that I might've made,
or my leadership, um, approach.
It may differ from some coaches.
-Yeah, see
-That's just a conversation.
[commentator] He didn't show up in Austin
thinking he didn't have anything
to improve upon.
He's accepting the coaching
he's being given,
and he's obviously benefiting from it
with the talents
of Rick Barnes and his staff.
What does a coach do at the NBA level?
He manages personalities.
I think that's the biggest thing.
We all know how to play,
we all know all terminology,
we know every single scheme that can be.
But when you got a guy
that can set the table for us,
and then tell us to go eat
and let us do our thing,
I think that's the best coach.
But managing personalities is
-I think that's their biggest job.
-[Letterman] Trash talking,
I want you to tell us
your approach to that. I I just
I just love this.
First off, I don't talk
unless anybody's talking to me.
[Letterman] Yeah.
And I try to channel
all my trash talk to the coaches.
[laughs] And
-And the guys on the bench.
-Yeah.
They'll be relaying these messages
to the guys on the court.
So you might be going back downcourt,
and you pass the coach, and you might say
"This guy, you might have
to switch this match-up."
-Or "he's too small."
-[Letterman laughs]
You tell that to the coach.
It's like there's a complaint box,
and you're filing a complaint
with the coach about his team.
Yeah, I'm at the point now,
I'm 15 years in the league,
so now, some of these coaches have been
they were young assistant coaches
when I was young.
So I've built somewhat of a relationship
seeing these guys throughout my years.
So now they head coaches,
so I feel a little better talking trash
to the young guys now.
[enchanting music playing]
[Kevin] Oh.
-Nike called, the deal's off.
-[chuckles]
You know what this is?
A little like shooting free throws.
Not as easy as shooting free throws.
Really? Is shooting free throws
easier than this?
For sure.
Wow.
Shuffleboard, harder than free throws.
[Kevin] Thank you.
Oh!
I'm just too strong.
So you can't go back here and
knock it off of this
like a backboard shot.
-It doesn't count.
-I'm sorry, is this your first game?
-Yeah.
-All right.
-If I want to win, it's now, right?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
I'm getting chest pains.
If that's what you want to use
-[laughs]
-[Kevin chuckles]
That's what I want to use.
-Believe me, that's all I got.
-Gotta finish the game.
-[biscuit clatters]
-Thank you.
You're welcome.
Whoo!
Come on!
This is my 110, right here.
Uh-huh.
-I'm still up, though, right?
-No, we're tied.
7-7, all right. Good, we're tied.
-You done?
-No, we got 20 more of these.
[both laughing]
We'll be here, "It's getting dark."
[both laugh]
[Letterman] Where's your favorite court
in an arena?
Gotta be Brooklyn.
-Barclay's.
-[Letterman] That's the high.
What would be
your next favorite place to play?
Staples.
It's a Laker town, it's a Laker nation.
Everybody in the world
and the country likes the Lakers.
Your relationship with Kobe,
uh, close relationship?
Just played opposite one another? Friends?
Our relationship, uh,
was about just straight respect.
I was 19 coming in
and seeing him for Team USA.
Practice and play everyday,
be a teammate of his.
I really gained a lot of respect for him.
Crazy. You're 19
and your teammate is Kobe Bryant.
Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, it was Jason Kidd.
Very grateful I got
that opportunity that early.
That day that, you know,
we all got that news, it was just
I don't even have a word
to describe how that felt.
It's somebody you look up to,
you watch their career,
watch them grow up
from a 17-year-old kid to where he is now.
We all lived with Kobe
at some point in our lives.
Whether you were a basketball fan or not,
a Lakers fan or not,
here was a guy
that was emblematic of energy and skill
and dedication and devotion.
Many, many things that meant
many, many things to people.
Uh, and then this happens.
What do you feel?
What do you do? How do you keep moving?
Uh, early, I mean, I
I just couldn't believe.
I mean, it was one of those moments
that I still can't describe, you know?
Somebody you looked at as a hero,
somebody you looked and seen,
"Well, you can see where Kobe's going
the next 20 or 30 years of his life."
-He was building something special.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
For his family, the basketball community,
for everybody, you know?
And to see that tragedy, it was just
it didn't seem real.
[melancholy music playing]
[Letterman] What I want to do
is the old alley-oop.
-You want to throw me an alley-oop?
-Where do you want it?
Gotta toss it so I can catch it here.
[upbeat jazz music playing]
[laughs]
-Was that close?
-No, it wasn't.
Ready?
All right, no.
-My bad.
-That's your fault.
All right, wait till I
I feel like it's my fault.
You're not waiting till I run
and try to dunk it.
Let it float in the air a little bit.
Come on, throw it.
Whoo!
You tell me what the experience is like
having famous people at courtside
heckling, uh, causing trouble,
you know, trash talking,
whatever they're doing.
Is that fun? Or is it just like,
"Oh, just go back to your house"?
-It's incredible. I love it.
-Oh, you do? You love it?
I encourage it.
[laughs]
I mean, that's part of the experience
coming to the games.
You're that close, you get to have
a conversation with the players.
If it's Obviously, if it's respectful,
and everybody's been respectful
to me, so I mean, I'm
The most The most fun I have
is when we go to Toronto and play,
and Drake's there.
[jazz music playing]
He talks a lot to everybody
and makes the game even more fun.
Rihanna too, she's a heavy talker.
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] Can you do me a favor?
Can you text somebody?
Just pick somebody out,
and say, "Dumbass won't shut up."
[laughs]
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] You're always
on your cell phone.
I seen you on your phone too.
-Did you?
-Yeah.
I see a lot of people in here
checking their phones.
Yeah, nobody's paying attention.
The thing about me and my phones
is it's a running joke in the NBA,
that I'm just the only guy
always on Twitter and on my phone a lot.
But I look around,
pretty much everybody is on the phone
just as much as me.
And you're always Twittering. Tweeting?
It's me, uh,
fact-checking.
You know, when somebody
says something about me,
-I just want to know where it came from.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
Because if I'm the subject,
and I know what you're saying isn't true,
I want to know why you saying this
in front of everybody.
Do you take this stuff seriously
or do you find it amusing?
-It's amusing to me.
-Yeah.
[Kevin] I really enjoy it.
I enjoy the reactions more than anything.
Because people not expecting me to say
the stuff I say on Instagram or Twitter.
-[Letterman] You find any of it hurtful?
-[Kevin] Nah.
-[Letterman] It doesn't bother you?
-[Kevin] Nah.
-[Letterman] This is just an amusement?
-[Kevin] Yes.
-[Letterman] That's cool.
-[Kevin] It's fun.
Yeah. When you take the court in an arena,
are people up there doing this?
-I'm sure they are. During the game?
-Yeah.
That's the That's the thing,
is the tweet during games.
That's insulting, isn't it?
-No.
-It doesn't bother you?
If I got out there and handle my business,
they ain't gonna do nothing but praise me.
I remember, years ago,
talking to one of the guys
who was a founding, uh, person in Twitter.
I said, "Describe this for me."
And he said, "It's the nervous system
for the world."
Meaning that everybody in the world
is now connected.
Yeah.
And when he said that, I thought,
"This is fantastic." Uh, but now
-It can be too much.
-Too much and it can be misdirected.
Yeah. Have we seen too much
so fast because of the Internet?
Are we too connected?
Which is a good question
to ask at this point.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-What has it been? Ten, 12 years
since all that stuff came about.
We're at this stage now,
we can see the results of all of it.
What if I brought seven giant people
in here and took your phone away from you?
And you didn't have your phone,
what would that do to you?
-Nothing.
-You'd be all right without your phone?
No, but it wouldn't do
anything that major to me.
I would just figure out how to adapt,
or just go get a new phone when I leave.
[laughs] No, you can't
The purpose of the argument
-is you don't have a phone anymore.
-[laughing]
I'd figure out a way to adapt to life.
-You think so?
-Yeah.
Also, you are a businessman.
What is the extent of your participation
in the marijuana business now?
-is it Weedmap?
-We partnered with Weedmaps.
What does that mean?
We partner with them on content
and trying to figure out ways
to change the narrative
-around athletes and marijuana.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
And I admire this,
the idea is to destigmatize this.
Yeah.
For decades, it was presented
as "Oh, geez, you're going to hell."
-[Kevin] Yeah, as a gateway.
-Yeah.
It's confusing to a lot of people.
You can look around this city,
maybe in the next year or two,
-there's gonna be dispensaries everywhere
-Mm-hmm.
where you can actually go buy weed.
Right. Which is true in many states
around the country now.
A lot of states. And it's even crazier
that you got people in jail
-for 20 years for maybe selling a pound.
-[Letterman] Yep.
When did you begin, as a kid?
As a kid, smoking weed?
Nah. I mean, if you want to call 22 a kid.
Twenty-two, so an adult.
And explain what it does
that people might misunderstand about it.
To me, it clears the distractions
out your brain a little bit,
settles you down.
-It's like having a glass of wine.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-So did you smoke today?
-Yeah.
-And you're just fine.
-I'm actually high right now.
[laughs]
[Letterman] Uh, my experience with it,
uh, I lived in California,
and I was much younger,
and everybody was doing it.
It was in the late '70s, early '80s.
And it just, uh
I-I found myself motionless.
I can remember going
to a Yankees-Angels game,
and my girlfriend and I
smoked a joint before the game,
and I just sat there like this.
And I kept thinking, "Wow,
that guy's standing on a mound of dirt."
"Whoa."
"It's actually a mound of dirt."
That's interesting to you.
That means you're really a curious person.
Yeah. I have no idea who won the game.
-[laughs]
-But you remember that moment.
Was I smoking the wrong kind?
You were smoking the right kind
if you're thinking like that.
[laughs]
[jazz piano playing]
-[Kevin] You wanna play Pig?
-[Letterman] Yeah, let's do Pig.
[Kevin] There goes one.
That's it?
[Letterman laughs]
Oh!
[Kevin chuckles]
[Kevin] Free-throw line.
-You got a "P."
-Let me try again.
No, you lost. You gotta try
this shot though. It's a "P."
-Uh, here?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-[Letterman] Oh, shit!
-[Kevin] All right.
Last shot. Put this on a bucket list,
that I beat, uh, Mr. Letterman in Pig.
You did great.
-[Letterman] I'm humiliated.
-Thank you.
I'll have to wait till dark
to leave the building.
-[Kevin] Really?
-Ever feel that way?
No.
Ow!
-That's a foul on you.
-[both laugh]
Flopping penalty.
Oh, man.
Yeah, but can you do this?
-Ah?
-Good shot.
My new friend.
[jazz piano outro plays]
[Letterman] And gaming. You play games?
Every day, yeah.
What do you play?
Call of Duty, NBA2K.
It's also a business of yours.
I've gotten into it, yeah.
It's crazy how far we've come
when it comes to video gaming.
So they have Call of Duty tournaments
where they'll have
probably 12 to 16 teams,
and they're all there.
And, yeah, it's an arena full of people.
But this is part of the business
you'd like to be in?
Oh, yeah. I would definitely wanna
yeah, do events like that.
Build a team.
Build a brand in the e-gaming space.
-That'd be the goal.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
This is, uh, laying the groundwork
for beyond basketball.
Yeah, I can't play
I can't be bringing in
these checks or playing on TV
in front of millions every night
for the rest of my life.
Of course, Tom Brady now
is saying he can play till he's 50.
That's hilarious.
-I'd pay to see that.
-[laughs] Me too.
Yeah. But you've not assigned
a number to this?
Nah, I wanted to before,
but now it's just like
But one of the surgeries,
you had a bone graft to help repair
an ankle-something surgery.
-My foot. Yeah.
-Yeah, bone graft.
I don't know,
but that sounds like more than,
"Put an Ace bandage on it and ice it."
Yeah, that was a nice recovery
after that. Um
Are you 100% now? You're ready to go?
Yeah, that was six years ago,
seven years ago.
So, yeah, I'm good from there.
But that's when I started thinking
about after basketball.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-[Letterman] You seem extremely generous.
-[Kevin] I try to help as much as I can.
[Letterman] What are the organizations?
Your mother, you, your father's involved.
We have the Durant Center,
which is across the street
from, actually, where I grew up.
The same apartments that I grew up,
we bought a building across the street.
There's a high school and a middle school
on the same street.
So we funnel a lot of those kids
from those two schools
into a program we call College Track.
Which is essentially just getting them
prepared for the next steps,
centered around where I come from,
PG County, Maryland. I try to
-I want to make that my focus for now.
-[Letterman] And your dad?
Yeah, he runs my youth programs
back in Maryland.
He's there every single day,
working with the kids,
and has a relationship
with each one of the parents.
-He's really locked in.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
And he created a program for all the kids.
We got a lot of kids in college now.
Looking forward
to the next, um, generation of guys
from my team to make it to the NBA.
Yeah. So that'd be a thrill.
-[Kevin] A huge deal.
-Planted the seeds.
-And now, they come full grown.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
[Letterman] I've seen you with people,
uh, at these facilities.
I've seen you opening basketball courts
and interacting with folks.
It must bring you a great deal of joy.
I saw you talking to Draymond Green,
and he asked you about happiness.
And you said you're not interested
in pursuing happiness.
I thought, "I'm kind of that way."
But are you happy now?
-I'm in a good place right now.
-Yeah.
-I'm happy. It's fun to talk to you.
-It's fun to talk to you.
It's a good experience.
I chase experiences.
[Letterman] Yeah.
And whatever lies in those experiences,
I just take it for what it is.
Sometimes I might not
I might dive into something
and it wasn't what I expected.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
But at least I experienced it
and I know what not to do now.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
So, you know, that's what my chase is.
You know, being able to adapt
to any emotion I may have.
Being able to cut it on and understand it.
You know, that's
that's really what I mean.
When things would go well for me,
I would feel good.
When things went bad for me,
I'd feel bad for a week.
Does that not affect you?
If you lose a game, does it go right away?
[Kevin] We play so many
That's the beauty of the league,
it's taught me so many lessons.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-When I have a bad game, I can't sulk,
-because we play the next day.
-Yeah.
Is part of your decision
to continue playing,
you have a sense of winning
because winning is how you prove yourself?
I know I'm worth something
regardless of the win or loss,
um,
but it's a fun exercise
for me as a human being
to compete for something.
You find ways to meditate, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I feel like we fall in and out
of our meditative states, you know?
Sometimes when I play and I'm in the zone,
-I feel like I'm meditating.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
When you clear all the distractions
that really don't mean nothing
to your life,
you get to the core of why you're
doing something or why you're alive,
I think that's the closest form
of meditation.
I mean, you don't always have to be
eyes closed,
uh, room dark.
That definitely is a good way to do it.
Uh, but I found for me, there's some
other ways to calm me down and
soothe my soul, you know.
-[Letterman] We gotta break the tie.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-[Letterman] Okay.
-[Kevin] This round?
Oh, this is it!
This is like the clock is winding down.
[dramatic instrumental music playing]
-[Letterman] This is it.
-[Kevin] For the game.
[Letterman] Oh!
All right, nice going.
Congratulations.
-Appreciate that.
-I don't mind losing.
-Did you win your last game?
-I don't think so.
I think I got bored,
and then my parents came and took me away.
-So I have a better record than you.
-Yeah, you do.
-And you way more experienced than me.
-[Letterman laughing] I am.
I'll take it.
[crowd cheers]
[Letterman] You, Harden, and Kyrie.
Isn't this championships
for the next five years for Brooklyn?
We shall see.
How much longer do you want to play?
I don't know. Until
Until I don't feel like it no more.
[sighs]
But you would like a few more rings.
I would like
to experience that again, for sure.
I've done many of these.
Uh, this is one that I keep thinking
I'm gonna swallow my tongue,
uh, because, uh, I just
I love who I know you to be.
So yesterday I come up to you,
and because I'm still in this mode of,
"Oh geez, he's here.
Oh my God. This is the guy."
-Man, that's what I've been thinking.
-Yeah. And I say to you, "Listen."
Uh, "I want this to go well."
"You and I are gonna talk tomorrow,
but when we're done talking afterward, uh,
I want us to be friends."
And you looked at me like,
"This guy's crazy."
-I thought you were perfectly sane.
-"This guy's crazy."
And then you said,
"Yeah, me too."
[both laughing]
And I thought, later, I thought,
"This is as creepy as it gets."
"Here's this old guy, uh, telling me,
'We're gonna be friends, right?'"
I didn't think it was creepy. I started
visualizing us going out to have a drink.
-Yeah, I do, I love you.
-I love you too.
-[Letterman] Have a great season.
-Thank you.
Have a great life.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-[Letterman] Thank you, my friend.
-[Kevin] Thank you.
[breezy jazz music continues]
[horns honking]
We looking forward to training camp
and starting off this journey there.
[man 1] The, uh, gentleman in the back.
Yes. Uh, Dave, uh, from Basketball Digest.
Kevin, why do people call you KD?
[Kevin] Um
[breezy jazz playing]
-My first name is Kevin, with a K.
-Right.
My last name is Durant with a D.
[Letterman] I just got off the phone
with the Dolan family.
They're talking to the commissioner.
They're looking at working
a contractual deal that will allow you,
when you're not playing
for the Nets, days off,
you'll be able to play for the Knicks.
-Comments?
-All right, Dave. That was the last one.
-[man 2] Wrap it up.
-Wrap it up?
Okay. What about the Pelicans?
When you play the Pelicans,
does it make you giggle?
[chuckles]
-Yeah.
-That's it, everybody. Thank you.
Good job, Dave.
-[Letterman] I'm sorry.
-You let anybody in here.
Hey, I heard that!
[laughter]
[audience cheering]
[theme music playing]
[man speaking indistinctly]
[gentle music playing]
[Letterman] Ladies and gentlemen,
Kevin Durant.
My new friend.
Seven in your score card,
number one in your heart.
-How you doing, sir?
-Have a seat.
[Kevin] Thank you.
-It's a nice view.
-[Letterman] Crazy, isn't it?
-This is where I live.
-Around this area?
Right here.
-Good place.
-You're in my living room.
-What do you think?
-Thanks for inviting me.
Well, you're welcome any time.
Where do you live here?
-You live in Brooklyn?
-Across the bridge.
Across the bridge.
[both] Manhattan.
What about the Knicks?
Did you think about the Knicks?
Nah. I was eyeing Brooklyn.
I have to keep reminding myself
that the Knicks are still in the league.
-What?
-I'm sorry, that's not your problem.
-That's disrespectful.
-I'm sorry. Did I say that?
I like that you did that.
I'm not a Knicks fan.
[laughing]
Wouldn't it be strange,
sitting here, you say
you're really a huge Knicks fan?
-[laughing]
-That's a conflict of interest there.
[atmospheric music playing]
-[Letterman] In Brooklyn, you're seven.
-Mm-hmm.
[Letterman] How'd we get from 35 to seven?
Why change that number?
[Kevin] When I had torn my Achilles,
I wanted to step
into this Brooklyn experience
feeling new, feeling fresh.
I knew my game was gonna be different,
-my body was gonna be different.
-Mm-hmm.
On top of that, all my favorite players
in the league had multiple numbers.
The seven looked so nice
in the black and white.
There's nothing more to seven
symbolically?
It's just a nice-looking single number?
You like how it looks on the shirt?
[Kevin] It signifies a lot of things.
God rested on the seventh day,
meaning that what he created was complete.
Not that it was finished,
meaning it wasn't gonna
continue to evolve,
-but he was done with it at that point.
-Mm-hmm.
So I felt like my game, it is what it is.
I'mma keep sharpening and adding tools,
and keep getting better,
but my overall approach is what it is.
[commentator] He turns, he shoots. Yes!
With one second remaining!
[crowd cheering]
-[commentator] Durant for three.
-[crowd cheering]
[Letterman] Did you change the game,
or was the game in change,
in flux, when you came to it?
Nah. I feel like I helped though.
I wouldn't say I'm the main reason,
but it was on the way.
-You know.
-Moving in that direction?
Yeah, I think some people
help to change the game,
and some of us just play it.
[commentator] Durant, and he goes down
to the seat of his pants.
[Letterman] With a lot of your shots,
you end up on your butt.
Yeah, 'cause my defenders
always wanna smell my cologne.
-They wanna get
-[laughs]
-'Cause I can shoot.
-Yeah.
And I'm tall. So they gotta get
as close as they can, contest my shot.
So, yeah, I'm always on the ground.
I gotta work on that.
And that's legitimate wear and tear on
Would be on anybody's body.
Is You worry about that?
Nah. It's just a part of it.
I saw footage of the Achilles injury.
Now, that must have been crazy painful.
-[Kevin] It wasn't.
-[Letterman] It wasn't?
Nah, nah.
The only thing I felt was the pop.
No kidding?
'Cause you more or less walked off.
There were guys with you,
but you walked off.
[crowd chanting] Kevin! Kevin! Kevin!
[Kevin] Yeah. It obviously felt different.
Like, I felt like I was walking
It's like my foot was on a slant board
-and I was trying to walk.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
It was a weird feeling,
but I didn't feel pain.
When something like that happens,
is the first thought,
"I wonder if this is it for me?"
-Yeah.
-Really? The first thought? That's awful.
-Yeah.
-Yeah. It could have been, couldn't it?
-It could have been.
-Yeah.
Yeah, that's the first thing
that came to my mind.
And, uh, that's why I was just so
um
calm, I guess, and reserved.
Well, I wouldn't even call that calm.
I was
Felt like I was looking in the face
of my basketball death.
Yeah. Yeah. You go down,
it's what you think about.
-Yeah, must be a deeper meaning.
-Yeah.
People have to keep that in mind
when they go to these games,
that these people we're watching perform
at this level are vulnerable.
Yeah, I mean we're human beings.
[Letterman] Yeah. Yeah.
We go through a lot.
We put a lot on the line to go out there.
[atmospheric music playing]
[Letterman] Hello. Hello.
-It's a half-day tomorrow.
-[woman speaks indistinctly]
Kevin.
What's up, Dave?
[Letterman] Nice.
[Kevin] Uh-huh.
I want you to see if you can take
this away from me. Come on.
-I wanna see your jump shot.
-No. Try and take this away from me.
[breezy jazz music playing]
You can't get in here, can you?
Okay, my friend.
Ouch! Look at this.
Come on, come and get me.
Oh!
-[Kevin] You wanna play defense?
-No, I'm just here.
-Why you in front of me then?
-[Letterman laughing]
You're worried, aren't you?
-No, I'm not.
-I have you worried.
I see a gray beard, I'm not used to that.
-[laughing]
-It's a little easier.
Now you sound like my wife.
Oh!
Don't want you to get hurt.
What if you get hurt?
-Me?
-Yeah.
-What if you get hurt?
-[laughs] Nobody cares if I get hurt.
[Letterman] You've got homes in LA,
in New York, in Maryland.
Maryland is your home.
Born and raised there.
I have relatives
who, uh, are from Maryland.
As a kid, you had blue crabs?
Yeah. Crab feasts were were a real thing.
How many do you think you could you eat
on a good day?
-So 96 comes in a bushel.
-Ninety-six crabs in a bushel.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-We've learned something already.
-You didn't know that?
-No, this is fantastic.
-So, out of 96, I could go about 12.
-When was the last time you did that?
It's been a while.
Five years ago, at a family reunion.
-Yeah.
-We got family in South Carolina.
Georgia,
obviously Maryland, all over Maryland, DC.
Yeah, my ancestors set up shop.
And how do they treat you?
Are Are you, "Oh, there's our cousin"?
Or, "Oh my God.
There's megastar Kevin Durant"?
I'll put it like this.
When I was coming up,
the older guys in our family
that went to college
and did great things with their lives,
everybody celebrated them.
-That was just family tradition.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
So, whether it was me, my cousins,
my brother, everybody gets that love,
especially if they haven't seen you
in awhile. That's the beauty of family.
Yeah, I didn't recognize that
until I had a son of my own.
I just was too busy, I overlooked it.
Was that in, like,
the heart of your career?
-The "prime years" of your career?
-Yeah.
How old were you?
I was 57, I think, when I had my child.
So that's a long time
to think that I was so important,
I didn't have room for anything else.
But was work fun? Doing it that way.
That's what the focus was.
I thought it needed that kind of focus.
But now that I've been
away from work, I realize,
ah, it just wasn't that important.
You know?
Uh, but you're in a different situation.
You have a lot more responsibility
to the culture
and to the society than did I.
No. I think you had an important job.
You had to tell the truth.
You had to relay the message
to the people. That's important.
It is important, but, uh,
you don't need to devote
your entire life to that.
I play a kids' game.
-Is that more important?
-Yeah, it is, and I'll tell you why.
When people ask me,
"Who are you talking to next?"
And I said, uh, Kevin Durant,
and everything stops,
because of the effect you have
playing a kids' game.
-[Kevin] Hmm.
-And especially now, to that
Just to elevate the mood
coast to coast and around the world.
And like the Olympics.
You represented this country
three different times.
-Won three different gold medals?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
I credit that to the game of basketball.
People are attracted to the sport.
I just happen to be one of the messengers
at this point.
[Letterman] Did you, as a kid, get to see
the Washington Bullets
before they became the Wizards?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
-Did you go to games when you were a kid?
-I went to one game.
-Do you remember how old you were?
Nine, 'cause I was playing nine-and-under
at that point
at Seat Pleasant Rec Center.
My mom called down to the rec, like,
"Y'all want to go to the game tonight?"
And we lost it.
And so, yeah, I remember the Bullets.
It was one of those moments
where I was like, "I need to"
"I want to go into every one of these
in the country."
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-"Every NBA arena, I need to go in
or play in at some point."
I made that a goal of mine as a kid.
-Have you played in all of them by now?
-Yeah. I have.
[commentator] Durant lines it up.
-Durant! Splash.
-[crowd cheers]
Your mother is still prevalent,
present in your games, isn't she?
Yeah.
She's been the same, at my games
since I was eight years old.
[Letterman] She's the one
that took you to the rec center?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
-[Letterman] And also your brother, right?
[Kevin] Yeah, it was to the point
that we were doing
We were doing our homework one day,
and she was like,
"Stop your homework and let's leave."
"Go play somewhere else.
You can't be in the house all day."
And as I got older, I realized
what she truly meant by that.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-I would have been one of those kids
that just sat in the house
and been cool with that.
I don't get that.
I would have been outside, getting
into stuff around the neighborhood.
But organized sports, I don't know
if I'd have pursued that on my own.
Mm. So all credit to Mom then.
Yeah.
-And my godfather.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
[Kevin] A guy I met at the rec center
when I was eight, taught me how to play.
-He's a part of my inner circle.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-Charles Craig, who I wore 35 for.
-[Letterman] Right, right.
He was also one of those guys
in my close circle before he passed away.
-Passed away at 35?
-Yeah.
Do you have a lot of friends
who are not basketball players?
Yeah. I know a lot of people.
I've run into a lot of people over my time
that I will call friends and family.
New friends as good as old friends?
Old friends always better
than new friends?
I like meeting people, but having someone
that's seen you evolve is just different.
Yeah. What about girlfriends?
Have I had any girlfriends,
is what you asking?
-Do I have one?
-[laughs] Kinda.
-I've had a few.
-Yeah.
I don't have one now.
Uh, here in Brooklyn, a good date,
maybe go play shuffleboard.
-That's a perfect date.
-[laughs]
[breezy instrumental music playing]
What I'm interested in here today,
not so much winning,
although I'm fairly confident I will win,
just because we're novices
At 45%?
-45% may be all I need.
-Oh.
-No offense.
-All right.
-I played once when I was 11.
-May I ask how old you are now?
[laughs] I'm 74.
-That's a long time away from the game.
-[laughing]
-How old are you? I take care of myself.
-Yeah, that is true. I'm 33.
-33, and you've never played.
-Never.
So who you gonna go with?
The guy who's never played
or the guy who's played once?
-I'll say the guy who's played once.
-Thank you.
But I also am 33 and athletic.
That's ageist. I hate to hear that
-coming from a man I admire and love.
-I'm sorry.
-I just had to.
-[Letterman] I get it.
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] These things we play with,
you know what that's called?
What do they call this?
-What do you think?
-A stick.
Yeah, that's what I call it.
No, uh, sir, that's a tang.
-What do you think these are?
-[Kevin] Uh, discs.
That's what I thought,
but according to this,
no, they're biscuits.
Hmm. That is a better name for 'em.
"Pro tip,
always use the tip of your tang
to slide biscuits."
Sounds like we might be talking
about something completely different.
Yeah.
And they also said
to push off the opposite foot
of the opposite hand
that you're shooting with.
Gets you more power and balance.
I never even considered that.
That's a pro tip they gave me over there.
"Trash talk optional." What comes to mind
under these circumstances?
I just gotta see your game.
-Yeah.
-We're both, uh
uh, intermediates.
No, no, no, no.
No, we're higher than that.
-You are?
-Well, I think we both are. Look at us.
Yeah, that is true.
I was giving respect
to the ones that came before us.
We're saluting the great pioneers
of shuffleboard.
-Yep.
-Like, name one.
[deep breath]
Hard to do but there's some good ones.
-Be hard to pick one.
-Yeah.
-Did you have breakfast today?
-I did.
-What'd you have?
-An omelet with some oatmeal.
-Sounds great.
-What about you?
-I haven't eaten yet today.
-Wow.
I was too nervous
about the activity. Honestly.
-You didn't eat?
-No.
That's That's not good for performance.
Well, we'll see.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-[Kevin] Which color you want?
-[Letterman] Black.
[Letterman] You can't use the tang.
-Gotta use the pole.
-I don't want you tossed out.
Sorry. I don't want
to get tossed out of here.
What a heartbreak that'd be.
-That'd be a tough way to finish the show.
-Tossed out of the shuffleboard court.
-So you start.
-No, go ahead.
-Please.
-You're my guest. No, you're my guest.
Please.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-You don't want to go to first?
-I wanna watch you. You the vet.
-I have no idea.
-[Kevin] Hmm.
-You invented this game though.
-[laughs]
[breezy jazz music playing]
Yes!
I got an eight.
-Nah. I think that's the lane number.
-Oh.
This is a little trash talk. "Ooh! Beat"
"Can you Way to go with that biscuit."
[Kevin] On the line.
Now, you push off on this foot
or your right foot?
You got one more game than I have.
You should tell me
which foot I should go off of.
I'm trying to remember what I did
when I was [clears throat] 11.
I don't believe you only played this
one time in your life.
Yeah, I have the look of somebody
who routinely plays, right?
[chuckles] Okay.
Great form. Let me try that.
-[Letterman] Strong.
-[Kevin] It works.
-Oh.
-Oh. Goodnight.
Say goodnight.
All I gotta do
is keep the seven where it is, right,
and I win?
We got eight more
seven more rounds after this.
-We do?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
[laughs]
-Don't sprint your first lap.
-[laughs]
[Letterman] You and I
have many things in common.
Uh, and I know people are saying,
"Where's the remote?"
But, uh, we do.
What do you weigh, 220?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-Me too.
-Really?
-Yeah.
How tall are you?
Six-nine.
Okay.
-Are you at the weight you want to be?
-Yeah, I think so.
And you're never out of shape, are you?
-Yeah, I do get out of shape.
-Really?
I would think that the training schedule,
and, with the Olympics in the off-season,
and then getting ready for the season,
that you're never out of shape.
This game is constantly moving.
-So whenever you stop, the game doesn't.
-Yeah.
So when I take two or three weeks off,
not playing, it takes a little longer
to get back into playing shape,
the shape I want to be in.
I could probably
run up and down the court, but
I want to be in tip-top form,
like end-of-season form.
You're not just running
up and down the court.
No, I'm making I'm using
different muscles in my body
at this point,
that I wasn't realizing
early on in my career.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-Being injured a few times
A few times.
I'm starting to understand
what my body is saying.
I played some basketball when I was a kid.
Played two years
of high school basketball.
What year was that?
[laughs]
In the '60s.
And pretty soon, I realized that I was
gonna be just on the practice squad.
-I was once at that point.
-You were at that point.
Now let me tell you what happened to me,
because it's all really about me,
isn't it?
[both laughing]
Uh, so my second year,
I just would practice and practice.
I got pretty good at just blocking shots.
That's all I could do.
You were the tallest on the team?
No, not by any stretch of the imagination,
but I could leap.
One night, middle of the first quarter,
coach Bob Brown, who nobody liked,
"Letterman, get in there."
And it was like, "Oh, shit, I'm going in."
So I get the ball,
I throw it right back to the guard,
and the opposing team picks it off,
runs down,
it goes in for an extra point and
for a field goal.
And as he goes up, I foul him.
-[Kevin] Mm.
-Yeah.
-That's a tough sequence.
-It is a tough sequence.
Now, who's fault is this?
Yours.
No! It's Bob Brown's.
-Coach Brown.
-Because he threw you in?
He threw me in,
and here's the bad part of it.
Uh, I never played again.
-Aren't you supposed to stay ready?
-I was ready, but I was scared.
Now, as a coach or as a player,
how would you have handled that?
-I probably would have did the same thing.
-[laughs]
One thing you don't want as a coach
is somebody that's nervous.
The pressure made you scared?
Yeah. Have you ever been
frightened by pressure?
I've been anxious.
I wouldn't say frightened.
Anxious and frightened
are different things.
Yes, they are.
Has that been the way
you've played all your life?
-Yeah.
-[Letterman] People used to ask me this,
"Before you go to work, are you scared?"
And, uh, no, I was never scared.
I was excited, and I'm getting
that that's what you're talking about.
-Definitely excited.
-Yeah.
'Cause when you can control something
I know how to control myself out there
on the floor.
I feel like I can dictate a lot out there.
That's fun, knowing that you got
that type of control.
Let's say you're down a few points.
Still fun?
-Yeah.
-And you don't quit if you're down?
-No.
-[Letterman] Keep going?
No. I mean,
I've been in 890 games, I think.
880 games, my career, and I done played
in every situation, I felt like.
-Double overtimes.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
Being down 20, winning,
coming back and winning.
Being up 20 and losing.
Is it better to play mad
when you're playing basketball?
-Do you have to play angry?
-That used to be my approach.
It was hard for me to get angry
'cause I'm not really
one of those people to get angry,
but I noticed when I was mad
that I would play a little bit better.
When you angry,
it's kind of hard to cut it on and off.
When I'm talking to my teammates
and when I'm playing against my opponents,
I gotta be
I gotta be two different people.
So I don't know,
I just try to stay even-keeled now.
Not get too upset
or too high or too low at anything.
But as a younger player,
I definitely played off emotions
a little bit more.
-[crowd cheering]
-[announcer speaking indistinctly]
Tell me some guys that you really
don't want to have anything to do with.
You don't need to name names,
just give me the team and the number.
[laughs]
I like everybody.
[laughs]
-Really?
-Yeah, I do, actually.
Do you like your coaches?
I've never had a problem with my coaches.
We're talking about high school coaches.
-Mm-hmm.
-Rec center coaches,
college, then we go three different
professional coaches, right?
Yeah.
So this tells me that you're, uh
you know how to get along
in a wide variety of situations.
-I've had some run-ins with coaches.
-Like, describe a run-in.
-Disagreements.
-Over what kind of things?
Over how something should be done.
Like what?
A play that maybe been ran
or a decision that I might've made,
or my leadership, um, approach.
It may differ from some coaches.
-Yeah, see
-That's just a conversation.
[commentator] He didn't show up in Austin
thinking he didn't have anything
to improve upon.
He's accepting the coaching
he's being given,
and he's obviously benefiting from it
with the talents
of Rick Barnes and his staff.
What does a coach do at the NBA level?
He manages personalities.
I think that's the biggest thing.
We all know how to play,
we all know all terminology,
we know every single scheme that can be.
But when you got a guy
that can set the table for us,
and then tell us to go eat
and let us do our thing,
I think that's the best coach.
But managing personalities is
-I think that's their biggest job.
-[Letterman] Trash talking,
I want you to tell us
your approach to that. I I just
I just love this.
First off, I don't talk
unless anybody's talking to me.
[Letterman] Yeah.
And I try to channel
all my trash talk to the coaches.
[laughs] And
-And the guys on the bench.
-Yeah.
They'll be relaying these messages
to the guys on the court.
So you might be going back downcourt,
and you pass the coach, and you might say
"This guy, you might have
to switch this match-up."
-Or "he's too small."
-[Letterman laughs]
You tell that to the coach.
It's like there's a complaint box,
and you're filing a complaint
with the coach about his team.
Yeah, I'm at the point now,
I'm 15 years in the league,
so now, some of these coaches have been
they were young assistant coaches
when I was young.
So I've built somewhat of a relationship
seeing these guys throughout my years.
So now they head coaches,
so I feel a little better talking trash
to the young guys now.
[enchanting music playing]
[Kevin] Oh.
-Nike called, the deal's off.
-[chuckles]
You know what this is?
A little like shooting free throws.
Not as easy as shooting free throws.
Really? Is shooting free throws
easier than this?
For sure.
Wow.
Shuffleboard, harder than free throws.
[Kevin] Thank you.
Oh!
I'm just too strong.
So you can't go back here and
knock it off of this
like a backboard shot.
-It doesn't count.
-I'm sorry, is this your first game?
-Yeah.
-All right.
-If I want to win, it's now, right?
-[Kevin] Mm-hmm.
I'm getting chest pains.
If that's what you want to use
-[laughs]
-[Kevin chuckles]
That's what I want to use.
-Believe me, that's all I got.
-Gotta finish the game.
-[biscuit clatters]
-Thank you.
You're welcome.
Whoo!
Come on!
This is my 110, right here.
Uh-huh.
-I'm still up, though, right?
-No, we're tied.
7-7, all right. Good, we're tied.
-You done?
-No, we got 20 more of these.
[both laughing]
We'll be here, "It's getting dark."
[both laugh]
[Letterman] Where's your favorite court
in an arena?
Gotta be Brooklyn.
-Barclay's.
-[Letterman] That's the high.
What would be
your next favorite place to play?
Staples.
It's a Laker town, it's a Laker nation.
Everybody in the world
and the country likes the Lakers.
Your relationship with Kobe,
uh, close relationship?
Just played opposite one another? Friends?
Our relationship, uh,
was about just straight respect.
I was 19 coming in
and seeing him for Team USA.
Practice and play everyday,
be a teammate of his.
I really gained a lot of respect for him.
Crazy. You're 19
and your teammate is Kobe Bryant.
Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, it was Jason Kidd.
Very grateful I got
that opportunity that early.
That day that, you know,
we all got that news, it was just
I don't even have a word
to describe how that felt.
It's somebody you look up to,
you watch their career,
watch them grow up
from a 17-year-old kid to where he is now.
We all lived with Kobe
at some point in our lives.
Whether you were a basketball fan or not,
a Lakers fan or not,
here was a guy
that was emblematic of energy and skill
and dedication and devotion.
Many, many things that meant
many, many things to people.
Uh, and then this happens.
What do you feel?
What do you do? How do you keep moving?
Uh, early, I mean, I
I just couldn't believe.
I mean, it was one of those moments
that I still can't describe, you know?
Somebody you looked at as a hero,
somebody you looked and seen,
"Well, you can see where Kobe's going
the next 20 or 30 years of his life."
-He was building something special.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
For his family, the basketball community,
for everybody, you know?
And to see that tragedy, it was just
it didn't seem real.
[melancholy music playing]
[Letterman] What I want to do
is the old alley-oop.
-You want to throw me an alley-oop?
-Where do you want it?
Gotta toss it so I can catch it here.
[upbeat jazz music playing]
[laughs]
-Was that close?
-No, it wasn't.
Ready?
All right, no.
-My bad.
-That's your fault.
All right, wait till I
I feel like it's my fault.
You're not waiting till I run
and try to dunk it.
Let it float in the air a little bit.
Come on, throw it.
Whoo!
You tell me what the experience is like
having famous people at courtside
heckling, uh, causing trouble,
you know, trash talking,
whatever they're doing.
Is that fun? Or is it just like,
"Oh, just go back to your house"?
-It's incredible. I love it.
-Oh, you do? You love it?
I encourage it.
[laughs]
I mean, that's part of the experience
coming to the games.
You're that close, you get to have
a conversation with the players.
If it's Obviously, if it's respectful,
and everybody's been respectful
to me, so I mean, I'm
The most The most fun I have
is when we go to Toronto and play,
and Drake's there.
[jazz music playing]
He talks a lot to everybody
and makes the game even more fun.
Rihanna too, she's a heavy talker.
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] Can you do me a favor?
Can you text somebody?
Just pick somebody out,
and say, "Dumbass won't shut up."
[laughs]
[breezy jazz music playing]
[Letterman] You're always
on your cell phone.
I seen you on your phone too.
-Did you?
-Yeah.
I see a lot of people in here
checking their phones.
Yeah, nobody's paying attention.
The thing about me and my phones
is it's a running joke in the NBA,
that I'm just the only guy
always on Twitter and on my phone a lot.
But I look around,
pretty much everybody is on the phone
just as much as me.
And you're always Twittering. Tweeting?
It's me, uh,
fact-checking.
You know, when somebody
says something about me,
-I just want to know where it came from.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
Because if I'm the subject,
and I know what you're saying isn't true,
I want to know why you saying this
in front of everybody.
Do you take this stuff seriously
or do you find it amusing?
-It's amusing to me.
-Yeah.
[Kevin] I really enjoy it.
I enjoy the reactions more than anything.
Because people not expecting me to say
the stuff I say on Instagram or Twitter.
-[Letterman] You find any of it hurtful?
-[Kevin] Nah.
-[Letterman] It doesn't bother you?
-[Kevin] Nah.
-[Letterman] This is just an amusement?
-[Kevin] Yes.
-[Letterman] That's cool.
-[Kevin] It's fun.
Yeah. When you take the court in an arena,
are people up there doing this?
-I'm sure they are. During the game?
-Yeah.
That's the That's the thing,
is the tweet during games.
That's insulting, isn't it?
-No.
-It doesn't bother you?
If I got out there and handle my business,
they ain't gonna do nothing but praise me.
I remember, years ago,
talking to one of the guys
who was a founding, uh, person in Twitter.
I said, "Describe this for me."
And he said, "It's the nervous system
for the world."
Meaning that everybody in the world
is now connected.
Yeah.
And when he said that, I thought,
"This is fantastic." Uh, but now
-It can be too much.
-Too much and it can be misdirected.
Yeah. Have we seen too much
so fast because of the Internet?
Are we too connected?
Which is a good question
to ask at this point.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-What has it been? Ten, 12 years
since all that stuff came about.
We're at this stage now,
we can see the results of all of it.
What if I brought seven giant people
in here and took your phone away from you?
And you didn't have your phone,
what would that do to you?
-Nothing.
-You'd be all right without your phone?
No, but it wouldn't do
anything that major to me.
I would just figure out how to adapt,
or just go get a new phone when I leave.
[laughs] No, you can't
The purpose of the argument
-is you don't have a phone anymore.
-[laughing]
I'd figure out a way to adapt to life.
-You think so?
-Yeah.
Also, you are a businessman.
What is the extent of your participation
in the marijuana business now?
-is it Weedmap?
-We partnered with Weedmaps.
What does that mean?
We partner with them on content
and trying to figure out ways
to change the narrative
-around athletes and marijuana.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
And I admire this,
the idea is to destigmatize this.
Yeah.
For decades, it was presented
as "Oh, geez, you're going to hell."
-[Kevin] Yeah, as a gateway.
-Yeah.
It's confusing to a lot of people.
You can look around this city,
maybe in the next year or two,
-there's gonna be dispensaries everywhere
-Mm-hmm.
where you can actually go buy weed.
Right. Which is true in many states
around the country now.
A lot of states. And it's even crazier
that you got people in jail
-for 20 years for maybe selling a pound.
-[Letterman] Yep.
When did you begin, as a kid?
As a kid, smoking weed?
Nah. I mean, if you want to call 22 a kid.
Twenty-two, so an adult.
And explain what it does
that people might misunderstand about it.
To me, it clears the distractions
out your brain a little bit,
settles you down.
-It's like having a glass of wine.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-So did you smoke today?
-Yeah.
-And you're just fine.
-I'm actually high right now.
[laughs]
[Letterman] Uh, my experience with it,
uh, I lived in California,
and I was much younger,
and everybody was doing it.
It was in the late '70s, early '80s.
And it just, uh
I-I found myself motionless.
I can remember going
to a Yankees-Angels game,
and my girlfriend and I
smoked a joint before the game,
and I just sat there like this.
And I kept thinking, "Wow,
that guy's standing on a mound of dirt."
"Whoa."
"It's actually a mound of dirt."
That's interesting to you.
That means you're really a curious person.
Yeah. I have no idea who won the game.
-[laughs]
-But you remember that moment.
Was I smoking the wrong kind?
You were smoking the right kind
if you're thinking like that.
[laughs]
[jazz piano playing]
-[Kevin] You wanna play Pig?
-[Letterman] Yeah, let's do Pig.
[Kevin] There goes one.
That's it?
[Letterman laughs]
Oh!
[Kevin chuckles]
[Kevin] Free-throw line.
-You got a "P."
-Let me try again.
No, you lost. You gotta try
this shot though. It's a "P."
-Uh, here?
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-[Letterman] Oh, shit!
-[Kevin] All right.
Last shot. Put this on a bucket list,
that I beat, uh, Mr. Letterman in Pig.
You did great.
-[Letterman] I'm humiliated.
-Thank you.
I'll have to wait till dark
to leave the building.
-[Kevin] Really?
-Ever feel that way?
No.
Ow!
-That's a foul on you.
-[both laugh]
Flopping penalty.
Oh, man.
Yeah, but can you do this?
-Ah?
-Good shot.
My new friend.
[jazz piano outro plays]
[Letterman] And gaming. You play games?
Every day, yeah.
What do you play?
Call of Duty, NBA2K.
It's also a business of yours.
I've gotten into it, yeah.
It's crazy how far we've come
when it comes to video gaming.
So they have Call of Duty tournaments
where they'll have
probably 12 to 16 teams,
and they're all there.
And, yeah, it's an arena full of people.
But this is part of the business
you'd like to be in?
Oh, yeah. I would definitely wanna
yeah, do events like that.
Build a team.
Build a brand in the e-gaming space.
-That'd be the goal.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
This is, uh, laying the groundwork
for beyond basketball.
Yeah, I can't play
I can't be bringing in
these checks or playing on TV
in front of millions every night
for the rest of my life.
Of course, Tom Brady now
is saying he can play till he's 50.
That's hilarious.
-I'd pay to see that.
-[laughs] Me too.
Yeah. But you've not assigned
a number to this?
Nah, I wanted to before,
but now it's just like
But one of the surgeries,
you had a bone graft to help repair
an ankle-something surgery.
-My foot. Yeah.
-Yeah, bone graft.
I don't know,
but that sounds like more than,
"Put an Ace bandage on it and ice it."
Yeah, that was a nice recovery
after that. Um
Are you 100% now? You're ready to go?
Yeah, that was six years ago,
seven years ago.
So, yeah, I'm good from there.
But that's when I started thinking
about after basketball.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
-[Letterman] You seem extremely generous.
-[Kevin] I try to help as much as I can.
[Letterman] What are the organizations?
Your mother, you, your father's involved.
We have the Durant Center,
which is across the street
from, actually, where I grew up.
The same apartments that I grew up,
we bought a building across the street.
There's a high school and a middle school
on the same street.
So we funnel a lot of those kids
from those two schools
into a program we call College Track.
Which is essentially just getting them
prepared for the next steps,
centered around where I come from,
PG County, Maryland. I try to
-I want to make that my focus for now.
-[Letterman] And your dad?
Yeah, he runs my youth programs
back in Maryland.
He's there every single day,
working with the kids,
and has a relationship
with each one of the parents.
-He's really locked in.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
And he created a program for all the kids.
We got a lot of kids in college now.
Looking forward
to the next, um, generation of guys
from my team to make it to the NBA.
Yeah. So that'd be a thrill.
-[Kevin] A huge deal.
-Planted the seeds.
-And now, they come full grown.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
[Letterman] I've seen you with people,
uh, at these facilities.
I've seen you opening basketball courts
and interacting with folks.
It must bring you a great deal of joy.
I saw you talking to Draymond Green,
and he asked you about happiness.
And you said you're not interested
in pursuing happiness.
I thought, "I'm kind of that way."
But are you happy now?
-I'm in a good place right now.
-Yeah.
-I'm happy. It's fun to talk to you.
-It's fun to talk to you.
It's a good experience.
I chase experiences.
[Letterman] Yeah.
And whatever lies in those experiences,
I just take it for what it is.
Sometimes I might not
I might dive into something
and it wasn't what I expected.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
But at least I experienced it
and I know what not to do now.
[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
So, you know, that's what my chase is.
You know, being able to adapt
to any emotion I may have.
Being able to cut it on and understand it.
You know, that's
that's really what I mean.
When things would go well for me,
I would feel good.
When things went bad for me,
I'd feel bad for a week.
Does that not affect you?
If you lose a game, does it go right away?
[Kevin] We play so many
That's the beauty of the league,
it's taught me so many lessons.
-[Letterman] Yeah.
-When I have a bad game, I can't sulk,
-because we play the next day.
-Yeah.
Is part of your decision
to continue playing,
you have a sense of winning
because winning is how you prove yourself?
I know I'm worth something
regardless of the win or loss,
um,
but it's a fun exercise
for me as a human being
to compete for something.
You find ways to meditate, right?
Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I feel like we fall in and out
of our meditative states, you know?
Sometimes when I play and I'm in the zone,
-I feel like I'm meditating.
-[Letterman] Mm-hmm.
When you clear all the distractions
that really don't mean nothing
to your life,
you get to the core of why you're
doing something or why you're alive,
I think that's the closest form
of meditation.
I mean, you don't always have to be
eyes closed,
uh, room dark.
That definitely is a good way to do it.
Uh, but I found for me, there's some
other ways to calm me down and
soothe my soul, you know.
-[Letterman] We gotta break the tie.
-[Kevin] Yeah.
-[Letterman] Okay.
-[Kevin] This round?
Oh, this is it!
This is like the clock is winding down.
[dramatic instrumental music playing]
-[Letterman] This is it.
-[Kevin] For the game.
[Letterman] Oh!
All right, nice going.
Congratulations.
-Appreciate that.
-I don't mind losing.
-Did you win your last game?
-I don't think so.
I think I got bored,
and then my parents came and took me away.
-So I have a better record than you.
-Yeah, you do.
-And you way more experienced than me.
-[Letterman laughing] I am.
I'll take it.
[crowd cheers]
[Letterman] You, Harden, and Kyrie.
Isn't this championships
for the next five years for Brooklyn?
We shall see.
How much longer do you want to play?
I don't know. Until
Until I don't feel like it no more.
[sighs]
But you would like a few more rings.
I would like
to experience that again, for sure.
I've done many of these.
Uh, this is one that I keep thinking
I'm gonna swallow my tongue,
uh, because, uh, I just
I love who I know you to be.
So yesterday I come up to you,
and because I'm still in this mode of,
"Oh geez, he's here.
Oh my God. This is the guy."
-Man, that's what I've been thinking.
-Yeah. And I say to you, "Listen."
Uh, "I want this to go well."
"You and I are gonna talk tomorrow,
but when we're done talking afterward, uh,
I want us to be friends."
And you looked at me like,
"This guy's crazy."
-I thought you were perfectly sane.
-"This guy's crazy."
And then you said,
"Yeah, me too."
[both laughing]
And I thought, later, I thought,
"This is as creepy as it gets."
"Here's this old guy, uh, telling me,
'We're gonna be friends, right?'"
I didn't think it was creepy. I started
visualizing us going out to have a drink.
-Yeah, I do, I love you.
-I love you too.
-[Letterman] Have a great season.
-Thank you.
Have a great life.
[breezy jazz music playing]
-[Letterman] Thank you, my friend.
-[Kevin] Thank you.
[breezy jazz music continues]