The Game I Breathe
Kevin Durant & Nikola Jokic Aren't That Different
“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways,” begins Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s acclaimed Sonnet 43. Although this poem is sometimes mistakenly attributed to another famous English poet, William Shakespeare, the well-known opening is a note of adoration from E.B.B. to a fellow poet and her soon-to-be husband at the time, Robert Browning.
A video clip of Kevin Durant talking about basketball in Netflix’s newly released Court of Gold docuseries sort of reads like the hypothetical question posed by E.B.B. in her famous sonnet; except in Durant’s case, he has to answer. In the viral snippet, KD gets emotional explaining his love for the game.
“I come from a neighborhood where people don’t even talk to each other,” says the two-time NBA champion from Seat Pleasant, Maryland. “So much hate in the world too, it’s like… when people get to start laughing and joking for the game of ball, it’s cool to me, so it gets me emotional.”
Durant later adds, “The game has saved my life… It brought me and my family out of a lot of bullshit, so I’m just grateful for it, for real.”
Team USA’s all-time leading Olympic scorer is often memed for his dedication to basketball—whether it’s Durant shooting air jumpers in the club or skipping out on brushing his hair and applying lotion so he has more time to focus on his craft.
While these jokes have garnered lots of laughs over the years, it’s clear Durant is obsessed with basketball—and many of us admire his passion. Even Court of Gold director Jake Rogal was struck by KD’s earnestness.
“He cares about the game and spreading [the word] so much that it’s overwhelming to him,” remarked Rogal. “He doesn’t hold that emotion in.”
There’s a deep sensitivity and protectiveness you carry when the thing you love is more than just that thing but a life-source, a savior, something you’ve devoted your entire being to.
While Durant’s Drake fandom is well-documented, his allegiance to the game reminds me more of Kendrick Lamar. The Compton rapper has plenty of qualms with Drake, but one of Lamar’s main concerns is more about how popular artists, including Drake, try on different rap styles for size when it benefits them but don’t really care about preserving hip hop.
On “man at the garden” from Kendrick’s latest album, GNX, he raps:
“How annoying, does it angers me to know the lames can speak
On the origins of the game I breathe? That's insane to me
It's important, I deserve it all because it's mine
Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time, motherfucker”
Kendrick’s voice raises and his rapping becomes more rushed as he recites these lines. You can feel his frustration brimming over to the point where’s he’s about to lose it. Lamar is nearly beside himself as the song concludes.
Following last year’s Olympic semifinal game between the men’s basketball teams for United States and Serbia, Durant celebrated the U.S. victory by entering into his own beef. No stranger to exercising his Twitter fingers, KD stayed up until after 5 A.M. in Paris firing back at Denver Nuggets fans who rooted for their star center and the face of Serbian basketball, Nikola Jokic.
As a Nuggets fan who found myself rooting for Jokic as it looked like David might defeat Goliath, I was particularly invested in Durant’s ire and also firmly in the crosshairs.
“To all you nuggets fans, nobody gives a fuck who yall lames believe is the best player in the league,” KD tweeted, “players got major respect for Jok, we don’t worship him like yall do but most are in awe of his brilliance.”
In a follow-up tweet, Durant addressed the NBA’s “fan culture” as a whole.
“A lot of huge egos who believe they are the reason for the advancement of a sport,” he began. “ALOT [sic] of idol worship, a lot of hate and division based off wins and losses, a lot of disrespect of the work being put in by these incredible athletes, mostly by people who don’t know what it takes to be good at anything besides talking.”
With a palpable air of disgust, Durant closed his tweet by swatting these fans aside: “go do something and get out the way.”
Much like Kendrick, KD is fed up with people who don’t love the game like he does dismissing and sometimes overshadowing the sacrifices him and so many other players have made to push the sport forward.
Durant lives and breathes basketball; this isn’t just a game for him or a test kitchen to try out new recipes for virality. KD owes his life to the game.
On the surface, Nikola Jokic feels like the opposite. A different kind of NBA champion. He seemingly doesn’t care about basketball and would much rather be with his horses.
After leading the Nuggets to their first championship in franchise history in 2023, Jokic didn’t get emotional like Durant did during his Court of Gold interview or KD’s MVP speech ten years earlier. When ESPN’s Lisa Salters asked how it felt to be a champion, Jokic replied, “The job is done, we can go home now.”
He didn’t smile until delivering that line—a relieved expression on his face.
I’ve seen critiques of this moment measured against Durant’s heartfelt display on Court of Gold. One Instagram account questioned the validity of Jokic winning three MVPs when he doesn’t champion NBA basketball with the same fervor KD does.
While I recognize my bias toward Jokic as a Nuggets fan, I struggle with this take because I believe Jokic and Durant view basketball similarly even while expressing their love for the game differently.
During Nuggets Media Day ahead of the 2023-24 NBA season, players filmed a video sharing what basketball means to them. With all eyes on Jokic, given his perceived nonchalance and indifference toward the game, he caught everyone off-guard with his sincerity.
“Basketball means everything in my life,” said Jokic. He talked about playing the game since he was young and experiencing a wide range of emotions while competing.
As noted in Mike Singer’s biography on Jokic, Why So Serious?, former Nuggets point guard and Jokic teammate Reggie Jackson echoes this sentiment.
“The most impressive thing is how locked in he is, especially the narrative is, ‘He just wants to go home, and people may not think he views [basketball] with the same passion as other players,’” Jackson told Singer.
During their time playing together, Jackson paid close attention to how engaged Jokic stayed during the center’s rest minutes. Jackson called him “one of the most cerebral players I’ve been around,” noting how Jokic studies the game even when he isn’t on the court.
When asked about the importance of taking breaks from basketball, Jokic responded, “I mean, it is and it’s not because I think if you want to be successful, you need to be obsessed with it.” He continued, “But it helps sometimes when you don’t think about it. It’s a line between to be obsessed and still have time to relax.”
Later, he added, “If you love the game and you want to be obsessed, and you want to be the best ever, probably, it’s not [hard], probably, it’s fun. Depends, I mean, depends with the player. Depends on the personality, character… I’m just playing the game.”
Basketball may mean everything in Jokic’s life, but he knows there’s more to who he is. That includes his family, his homeland, and, yes, his horses. Jokic wants to win and enjoys mastering parts of the game just like Durant does, but he reckons with the value of becoming obsessed with the obsession. Sometimes, it’s enough to let the game be the game and not put more on it—or himself—than it can hold.
KD admires Jokic’s approach, recognizing that they’ve both carved their own paths toward dominance. “There’s different ways to do it,” Durant shared in the chapter dedicated to him in Jokic’s biography. “Mike did it his way, Kobe did it his way, Joker does it his way, and I do it my way.”
This brings me back to the question at the top of this essay: “How do I love thee?” The ways are plenty, and the GOATs are few. Returning to the rap comparison I started earlier, Jokic isn’t Drake, and he’s not even J. Cole. Rather, he’s another side of Kendrick—the one that reminds us “he is not your savior.”
As a Nuggets fan, my heart tells me the opposite. But so many of the things we claim have saved our lives are just that: things. They aren’t forever. At the end of the day, it’s on us to honor our loves in the best way we know how—even if it means fighting through tears or mentally preparing for our homecoming.
Whichever path we choose serves to guide us toward the everlasting: community, tenderness, and care. Where we can proudly proclaim from the mountaintop, just as Kendrick does, “I deserve it all.”
Thank you!
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This is beautiful. I got teary eyed more than a few times when reading about a person’s devotion, loyalty, and love for basketball. Seriously I’m not a sports person, yet your unmatched writing skills show sports in a new light and teach me more about how vital basketball culture is to people’s lives. I love the brilliant, emotive, and empathetic way your storytelling voice shines and reaches through to your readers. Thank you for sharing this important and beautiful piece with us readers.
what a humanising piece. alex, you alone could make me care about the interiority of tall hoopers and tiny rappers.