Rarely has a speech so moving and so memorable had such a beginning so mellow. “I’m a little nervous today,” he explained, squirming in a slim-fit blue suit. He rambled from there. He thanked the necessary people — 38, to be exact, not including God, mentioned first and last — typical for someone accepting a major award.
He discussed the moment, what it meant, how it felt.
This wasn’t rehearsed or scripted. The small scrap paper he held only contained a few names scribbled so he wouldn’t forget. The audience laughed at some one-liners and prepared to clap when he caught his breath before the finish.
There were 3,039 words spoken, yet the last few dozen became famous. In a speech that lasted just under seven minutes, the final 90 seconds hooked you like an addiction.
Shortly after Kevin Durant looked at his mother and said, “I don’t think you know what you did,” throats went dry.
“You had my brother when you were 18 years old. Three years later, I came out. The odds were stacked against us. Single parent with two boys by the time you were 21 years old.
“We wasn’t supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street. You put clothes on our backs, food on the table. When you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us.”
Wanda Durant, sitting in the first row, nodded and smiled to give her son the strength to finish because, at that point, his voice turned wobbly.
And then, his punch line, which hit everyone in the gut:
“You the real MVP.”
Ten years later, those words still ripple in and beyond the league.
"You the real MVP"
On this day in 2014… Kevin Durant awarded his mom the MVP in one of the most heartfelt speeches in sports history! #NBA75 pic.twitter.com/4KOTdnRBcN
— NBA History (@NBAHistory) May 6, 2022
Mama Durant is everyone’s mother
There are 36 MVPs in NBA history, a list filled with shooters, rebounders and game-changers.
None were “real.”
None was a “Mama.”
As in Mama Durant, by those who know her from way back, and by those who only know her from That Speech.
Wanda Durant’s life changed drastically three times: When she had children, when Kevin made millions in the NBA and when he gushed over her on May 6, 2014.
“He catapulted me on a platform that I was not expecting,” she told NBA.com, still in disbelief a decade later.
She went from the shadows to the stage. Fans, at home and on the road, chanted “M-V-P.” Organizations approached — JP Morgan Chase, the Ford Foundation, the Congressional Black Caucus — asking her to tell her story. She needed a publicist.
She did not withdraw from it all. She says even now: “I’m grateful.”
She was only taken aback a few times, in a good way.
First: When NBA players, competing against her son, gave her hugs. They followed the example of KD’s closest friends, who always addressed her as Mama. To them, she said:
“When you call me that, I know that I have a responsibility to you.”
It's an NBA family 🫶
LeBron embraces Wanda Durant. pic.twitter.com/booU1hfcju
— NBA (@NBA) October 27, 2023
Second: She heard from other mothers, at the games, on the street, at social functions. By the dozens. They had stories to tell, experiences to share, hardships and triumphs to describe.
“Grandmothers, grandfathers, they saw his speech and it reminded them of their mother,” Wanda said. “One woman was 79. She said she cried after the speech.”
Third: Two years after the speech, Lifetime aired “The Real MVP: The Wanda Durant Story,” produced by Queen Latifah and starring Pauletta Washington, Denzel’s wife, in the main role.
That’s when she knew her son’s speech hit … different.
“People from all over the world have contacted me through social media,” she said. “When I travel they approach and I’m shocked they know who I am. Initially, I guess it was a little uncomfortable, but I’m very secure in our story, our humble beginnings.
“For those moments in my life to be an inspiration to families and mothers, what it told me is that we all have an important story to share.”
She is asked: What were the dark depths of her former life, of being a single parent during most of Kevin’s pre-teenage years in Prince George’s County, Maryland? Given her son’s wealth and connections that open doors, those struggles must seem distant now.
Not exactly.
“We had good times, but it was tough,” she said. “Mothers don’t tell their kids about the challenges they go through in that situation. There were moments when I would cry alone in my prayers and trusted God to get us through and protect us.
“Not until many years later did I realize he got all that I was trying to do as a mom. When you’re in the thick of it, you think your children don’t see it. When he relayed it during his speech, it touched my heart that he knew the sacrifices I had to make.”
MVP stands for Most Valuable Parenting
As he watched his star player tear up, Scott Brooks, the coach of Oklahoma City then, had a flashback to the Central Valley of California, where he was the youngest of seven raised by a single mother.
Lee Brooks was hard-edged and no-nonsense on the outside. She had to be because, again, seven kids, no husband — he bailed years earlier.
When Scott came home crying about getting roughed up at school — he was just 4-foot-11 and 100 pounds as a freshman — his mother told him to go back and “beat the hell out of them.”
She made used auto parts and the family scraped by. After playing 10 years in the NBA, then turning to coaching, Brooks still wonders how she did it.
“I didn’t know what welfare was but I knew we were waiting in line to get food,” said Brooks, who was an assistant with the Portland Trail Blazers this season. “I thought everyone did that. Not until I got to high school did I find out that kids were driving cars and meanwhile I’m getting dropped off.”
In that sense, Durant connected well with others, some of whom, like Brooks, were raised by mothers on tight budgets.
“That’s how I was with my mom,” Brooks said. “She was always my hero, my MVP. It made sense to me. It made sense to a lot of us. The relationship Kevin had with his mother was real and raw and that speech wrapped everything together. That’s not only how he felt in the moment, he still feels that way.
“That’s why it will go down as the best MVP speech ever.”
Brooks’ best friend in the NBA, Charles Barkley, was mainly raised by a single mother. But it’s not just Charcey Glenn. It’s Ann Iverson, mother of Allen; Gloria James, mother of LeBron; Brandy Cole, mother of Jayson Tatum; Nicole Mitchell, who drove Donovan up and down the East Coast for AAU games; Mary Thomas, toughest mother on the West Side of Chicago, who kept evil away from Isiah.
And many others through many eras.
This NBA motherhood slowly emerged into a sisterhood, bonded by ballers. There’s a non-profit group, Mothers of Professional Basketball Players, Inc., exclusive to those who raised players and are seeing them through their careers.
Linda Shanklin, mother of the recently-retired Andre Iguodala, who was teammates with Durant on the Warriors, serves as president and said Durant’s speech hit home.
“It took me to Andre and a 10-year period where I was a single mom, before I married my current husband,” she said. “And the same story that Kevin was telling, Andre remembered all of what we went through. He saw me persevere.
“I can also tell you that Wanda is a beautiful spirit. She is humble and connecting … and I think it’s because of what she went through early on.”
A message bigger than he imagined
Kevin Durant was surprised by the speech, for two reasons.
One: For someone who claimed he never cried as a kid, “It’s cringy a little to watch yourself cry on TV.”
He laughs.
Two: “I knew it was a good moment. But sometimes moments are just moments, and they just go away. I didn’t realize this would last that long, you know? Two or three years afterwards, usually moms come up to me. Grandmas as well. Just the women in the family tell me how much they appreciated that.
“That’s when I started realizing it. I was like, ‘Damn, this might have impacted a lot of people.’”
All Kevin wanted was to give flowers to his teammates, friends and family. Those flowers blossomed in more places than he imagined.
“I reflected a lot that day,” he told NBA.com. “When you reflect, the memories come back fast and it’s hard to control those emotions, you know? I wanted to make it about what they did for me more so than what I had done at that point. Everybody who I named in that speech helped me to become the great player that I am.
“I was talking directly to those people, not knowing that it would spark this through others.”
He was legendary for the Thunder in that 2013-14 season, averaged a league-leading 32 points (still his career high) and led OKC to 59 wins. The MVP award authenticated it. Still, somehow, the speech outlasted the performance.
What’s especially interesting is social media was an emerging internet curiosity at the time. It just began to flex.
“I can’t even imagine that speech coming out now,” Brooks said. “It would be even more viral.”
And yet “the real MVP” part gets the meme treatment today whenever a social media post is about a mother, any mother.
When Durant took his college recruiting visit to Texas, PJ Tucker was his host. But the two engaged in a back-and-forth in Game 7 of the 2021 Eastern Conference semifinals when Tucker, then with the Bucks, roughed up Durant, then with the Nets.
What happened next did go viral — Wanda Durant screaming from her seat at the refs to punish PJ. Then she heckled Tucker, who turned and replied:
“Love you, mama.”
“Love you, PJ.”
PJ Tucker and KD's mom were chirping after this foul 😂 pic.twitter.com/F84HpLVgTm
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 20, 2021
Tucker reflects today and laughs: “I don’t mess with Mama Durant.”
He knows her son and what that speech represented. It took him to that special place with his own.
“Everybody around the league, no matter your background, when it comes to family and mothers, we know the deal,” Tucker said. “Kevin spoke for us. It was dope that he used that platform.”
Tucker told his mother to retire the day he earned his first paycheck. That’s how it goes in these situations, same with Durant. When he eats, everyone who helped him eats.
“I want them to experience everything that I can experience,” Durant said. “Coming from where we come from, to upgrade our lives and our family’s lives, and break generational curses by just playing basketball, that’s why I’m forever indebted to this game.”
Aside from the sacrifice she made, Durant is indebted to the guidance his mother provided, and one bit of advice in particular:
“My mom was like, ‘Yo, focus on what you want to focus on’ at an early, early age, like seven- or eight-years-old. And she held me accountable from there. So, when I got older, I realized how important that was, man. Because we could’ve fallen through the cracks, and she didn’t let me fall through the cracks one time.”
And so it would seem impossible for Kevin Durant to thank his mother enough, this Mother’s Day or any other. Wanda Durant says he has done that and more.
“What’s rewarding to me is the man he is outside of basketball, how he treats people, how he impacts a person’s life,” she said. “He has thanked me by continuing those efforts.”
* * *
Shaun Powell has covered the NBA for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
Michael C. Wright, senior writer for NBA.com, also contributed to this story.
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