Sonics' Durant Named Rookie of the Year

Seattle's star guard joins mentor LeBron in honored group
By Jesse Andrews,  Newser Staff
Posted May 1, 2008 10:05 PM CDT
Sonics' Durant Named Rookie of the Year
Seattle SuperSonics' Kevin Durant talks to reporters after he was named NBA basketball's Rookie of the Year.   (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Kevin Durant was so excited to learn he had just won the NBA Rookie of the Year award, he went back to sleep. That's what seven months and 82 games—more than double the amount the lanky 19-year-old had played in any previous season—can do to a teenager.

Fatigue that wasn't apparent while Durant soared in Seattle this season finally caught up to the SuperSonics' star this week. Then his mother, Wanda Pratt, woke him up with the news that he had just joined mentor LeBron James plus Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson, and Wilt Chamberlain in a legendary legacy of rookie award winners. (More NBA stories.)

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