When I think of athletes whose offseasons I want to discover, Kevin Durant isn’t one of the first to pop into my mind. The Thunder star and reigning NBA MVP hasn’t gotten into a lick of off the court trouble, hasn’t caused major rifts between teammates and/or coaches, and just shows up and scores points. Thus, the announcement that he would be the focus of an HBO documentary exploring his offseason caught me a little offguard. After watching The Offseason: Kevin Durant, I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot of new information about one of the best players in the league.
Durant’s entire four month offseason is crammed into an hour, which already puts HBO behind the proverbial eight ball. How are viewers supposed to get a good idea of who Durant is as a person off the court when we’re simply not getting much of a look at him outside of a few days of his offseason? We check in with Durant working out in Los Angeles, Durant working out in Oklahoma City, Durant at a basketball camp, Durant playing with Team USA, Durant signing a new shoe deal, Durant playing NBA 2K with his friends…and that’s about it. Kevin Durant really loves basketball, and gets worn down by all of his off the court commitments. And… scene.
HBO also got dealt a bad hand in regards to Durant’s foot injury, suffered just days into training camp. The foot injury was the most critical thing to happen to Durant this year, and all we got a 90 second segment on it at the end of the documentary. This film almost would have worked out better if Durant suffered the injury at the beginning of his offseason, and the documentary was spent chronicling his rehab.
Durant’s reaction to Paul George’s horrific leg injury during the US Team’s scrimmage in Las Vegas is foreboding, considering what would happen to him just a couple months later. Durant remarks about how George was just trying to make a play and how accidents happens, and how he just hopes he stays healthy. Later, he calls Mike Krzyzewski to pull out of the FIBA World Cup, blaming exhaustion and a desire to be fresh later in the year for the Thunder. And of course, that didn’t matter – despite not playing in the tournament, he still got hurt.
This isn’t to say that the film is bad. It’s put together very well, as you’d expect from an HBO Sports production. It simply has the unenviable task of trying to shine a light on a very vanilla player. Kevin Durant is an incredible basketball player, but he’s not much of a documentary subject.
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