Kevin Durant x LeBron James x Cari Champion | ROLLING WITH THE CHAMPION

the paper with the

champion

s was updated I have a big envy in the back we are in Akron Ohio and LeBron you have three destinations, yes, which is the first? You know, we headed to the Summer Lake Community Center, yeah, where the game of basketball was introduced. I know exactly how you feel for the first time five on five it's a coach this is what we do we know we run a sprint to get to the lie Katie where was that for you in Maryland that was a nice activity center and can you remember that day like it was yesterday, you walk into the gym or you just feel elated, like there's so many kids running around and you see a basketball it's like, man, you know, you know, you really know, we love this, you know?

I'm saying love at first sight, you really felt that as a child and that's what you need to feel at a young age, you need instructions to excite them, we're lucky to be able to fill that at Purdue's, how do you feel? The entire All-Star LeBron experience. I always think about when he was a kid and seeing the inspiration of the guys that he wanted to be like playing in an all-star game. It's like love returns. There are 24 guys every year to make it to the All-Star. -The star game will be 124 guys and you know that we will be the best, we will be the first three, the best, the best, that really means a lot, 14 times for you, nine times for you, is the game really special, the game is the best? players in the world walking by their words, a lot of people on this earth, you had the best game at night, that says a lot, then you go back to your neighborhood and say that, come on, you feel like you could die at that moment.

I know Rachel, talking about it means a lot, that Sunday night means a lot. I was under the impression that people take it for granted because you know, y'all, kritis, there's not enough detox out there, we've got to do a better job on Sunday. I agree and as the two best players Oh, I feel like we can definitely take it to the next level if there's just no justice, everyone will follow our lead, it's our obligation to go out and try to kill each other on the basketball court on the floor. that's our obligation it's like waking up don't even think about it that's our job that's our job we owe it to our fans we owe it to each other as competitors when you were in high school everyone knew who you were to you KD to you LeBron, like that that here you have all this pressure on the court, but off the court, I'm sure you have the same amount of pressure, how was it?

I mean, it's hard, you know, when you're growing up. a city where not many manage to get out and see that this kid here is very talented, they expect you to save the whole city and you don't fill it that much at first, but as the years go by, you start to feel like you know the pressure and how many people They depend on you to be successful not only for you and your family, but for everyone. You can definitely feel that it's true for the thing and in the neighborhood people who don't like it. They envy greatness, yeah, and that's the pressure you feel, you know because you want to prove them wrong, but at the end of the day you're really just trying to prove yourself right, so when you start thinking about it, you know The pressure and the hate and all that just adds up and distracts you from where you're trying to go, but I knew I had to keep pushing, so every time I reached a milestone it wasn't a celebration, it was just like, yeah, keep going. . another step because they're expecting us to follow them you know no it's the whole notion that when you grow up in the African American community it's like everyone is so happy when we're all on exactly the same level and like as soon as you can have a little bit of success.

In anything in life, even when you're a kid, even when you're 14, 15-year-old people envy that it's really interesting to see you mature and change over the years, but it's part of the process. I know you hear the saying like if you changed, of course I did, I changed. I am trying to improve. Why haven't you changed? And that's what you have to deal with even when you were a kid and playing ball. You look back and even see how Muhammad Ali and the things he had to go through, he was basically told you're the heavyweight

champion

of the world, but you have your beliefs and your religion, no, we don't care about that, we're going to strip and since If you don't want to go to the army and fight for us, then we'll see you in jail for three years and that's it without a doubt, and when you want to think outside the box, people don't know how to do it. take it dr.

Martin Luther King is another great example of a guy who risked his life every day to better life itself and in our little world, us as basketball players, but we as African Americans still feel like we hate every decision we make. We feel that it is the best for us and since people cannot make the decision for you, the only thing they can do is start a hate demonstration and we have to move on. They mentioned Muhammad Ali, which I found interesting and you are talking about hatred and criticism, we are in a decisive moment in this country here for sure and we cannot deny that we are very divided, especially in the political sphere, the official warriors said that if we had an invitation we wouldn't go to the White House LeBron, you caught the president of the bomb, yeah right, how did you describe the climate for an athlete with a platform today who wants to know what's happening at home, the world, what's hot weather, the number one job in America, the point person is someone who doesn't understand people and doesn't really care about people.

When I was a kid, there were like three jobs where you looked for inspiration or felt like these were the people who could give me life. He was the president of the United States. was whoever was the best in sports and then he was like the best musician at the time, you never thought you could be, but you can take inspiration from I felt like I can be, you know, he was an African-American neighborhood cop and he was cool, since he will come you can offer something like easy health yeah it could be him but I never felt like I could be the president of the United States but I was inspired by that and this time right now with the president of the United States.

We are in a bad moment and although we cannot change what comes out of that man's mouth we can continue to alert the people who look at us and listen to us, since that is not the case when we talk about leadership and what is happening in our In this country it's all about leadership and I learned that by playing basketball, you know, I learned a lot of life skills by playing basketball, you need that power, you need to encourage people and that's what builds a great team and I feel like our team. like how a country is not led by a great coach, it's not even a surprise when he says something, it's not even surprising, it's ridiculous, but it's also scary, right, it shouldn't be insensitive to your careers, right, right, it shouldn't be insensitive to your careers. behavior, but I hear people talk about black men with money, they think that privilege makes you desensitized to the experience and that you don't know what it means.

I don't care how much money you have, you're still a black man and you get the piece I'm a black man with a lot of money and I have a crib in Brentwood spray painted on me I have a lot more work to do. and no matter how far away the money is or the access or how you are in life as an African American man and woman, they will always try to find a way to let you know that you are still beneath them and that at that moment there are one or two things You either give in to that notion or you just write it down and say you know what I am.

I'm a painting on this damn door and I make it taller. Yes, so where we go now, Spring Hill Apartments is the place after all the years of moving. my hometown of Akron, this is where I finally had some stability and security. I know Katie. I read an article the other day where you said you know the transition to the Warriors really helped you find your voice. Yeah, what do you mean by that? Well, it's pretty simple. I mean, people's attention spans are really very short, so they just take what people tell them, so the thing is, now I want warriors every time we play on TV, it's a big deal, so now I'm just on More and more people watch me on television.

I'm starting to realize that my voice is a little bit stronger than before and now I have to start thinking about things that empower people and that affect people in a big way and for me it's just a point to show you that I don't really have it all together, but I'm still where I am and that's just the human way. You know, we are all mature and our different speeds, our different times, but I am where I am. and I can tell you the experiences that I have, that's how I see myself going to warrior, it's just more exposure and more voice, more people want to hear my voice now, so it's just research or just be more world I want to talk about Kevin Durant is like growing it until this is Who I am, you know and you need to know that the best life as a teacher is experienced and heard when you have a platform like this and you are passionate about it so you give your grain of sand, maybe even more than that .

I realized that at such a young age and even you guys deal with it now you guys don't get any breaks, how do you learn to deal with them? What exactly is not everyone going to like? what you do and everyone's not going to like what you said, you know that, but when you're passionate about it and you stick with it, you stick with it, then you can, you can sleep better at night. I mean, for the three of us, you don't know. just Katie and I, but you too, Kari, we, when you work as hard as we do and commit to what we do, you do two things, you inspire people who want to be you or even better, and then, for us individually, you have to do it. do what makes you happy you have to do what makes you happy you have to get to a point where people are going to like them they are going to dislike you you know, at this point now with social media there isn't any, but I can double tap on Like or Dislike, you know, it's like how people also like how they live, we all live in bubbles so big that for us, like me, I generally think this is the world, it was the end. -every man, if I have a bad game, I find a bad stretch, I really want to fill it, I really had to go my own way, it's hard for people to do that, that's what's really why they can't, you know? take a different path they don't like change it's like your ego is so big and you get stuck in what you want to do and how you see things that you can't get your way uplift and for us it's like that It's not a big deal, like if we played basketball.

Imagine me filling in because this guy on the roof, Chris, wants to go work at Morgan's, you know, look how stupid that sounds to me, to even just focus on that and it's like once you realize it. that does it, it makes things clearer and you just realize that what you're really in this for, it's not just for you to do what makes you happy every day, so we move on to the next one, now we'll take it up to my level . same school in the same area, yeah, and the point where I guess everyone started to know who I was, I guess famous, so Katie, do you have any questions you'd like to ask, yeah, Manas, because I see the bran growing Ben like he's a high school player. as a ninth grader, he was a senior, literally like a God to us, you know, he was there like we, you put it on TV again, so the next day at school we were talking about it, so you see that, and then you had your first son and then you had another son you had a daughter and for me I'm not even at that point in my life look but every day how do you become a better husband and father?

Every day we are really helping me become a father is what I want. I went through not having a father when I was a child. I've been learning on my own and when I had to become the man of the house when I was about five, I come from a single parent home. You know the store, just me. and my mom not only wanted to inspire me to be a basketball player or a football player profession to get my mom out of the situation. She wanted to have children early to show my father that the way you did it was absolute. wrong way to do it and I wanted to break the mold of where I want to be there and give him all the life skills, man I want you to know, tell him this is what your dad went through, this is how you approach it, this is how I went through for this and I'm still learning.

I have three kids and I'm still learning how to be a better husband, how to be a better father, how to be a better son, so my mom can stay professional, she'll never be done, bro. All you can do and hope at the end of the roll is to have given your children enough life lessons for them to use when it comes time to live for the day and then they can thrive on their own because they will have to make their own. paths too, although we have traced them in the best possible way and the same with being a husband, it is like when you know that you commit it, then everything else, take care of yourself, take care of thatthat was a lesson right there Well, the question I want to ask about the journey from high school from Montrose to Texas and OKC to now being in Golden State, what's the best thing you learned over the course of this journey, man, and just staying true to yourself trying to figure out who you are?

They are and during my high school years I always moved at my own pace and once I got to the league I started moving at the pace of everyone else and as I got older I realized that it was too exhausting for me to live on one different way.and then I really wanted you to know in public and how I am in private and it's like I was struggling with that, so as I got older I learned to be more authentic and more true to myself and hold on to that. The one thing you can never take away from someone is how genuine she is and how much she really cares and that's what I've always loved about Katy is the fact that she cares about what she believes in.

Have you ever thought this? It would be a moment this is your life this is your reality if I am real I cannot say that I saw this I did not visit me as an NBA player and you know that people come to see me play but to want to hear what I have to say and the experiences the ones I've been through make you stay alert, make you want to do the right thing, make you feel good when you do the right thing and that's what life is really about. I mean we can score all the points in the world and we can win as many championships as we want, but if we don't inspire someone to be a better person for one, I'll make him feel good when we play basketball and when he talks, then we're just here and not anymore.

I want to be here more. I don't want to fill this dough. I'm making an impact, you know, having three kids of my own and being around kids in my community, the only thing that matters most to them is that you care and once they see that you really care about what they're going through. or how they feel or things like that, they're passionate about what they want to become or what they want to do just shoots like no other exactly, so being in a position where you can teach young people is very key because we didn't have that, You know, we have people in our neighborhood with basic money, we know that we know the local drugs. distributors we know the local OGIS and stuff, but there's no end game, there's no end game, we didn't do it, it's not like we were there with them, so you don't know and having to learn everything about the march on our own, we should be proud of it, I mean, I congratulate us for being able to be in this position, we won, there's nothing, it's unheard of, we'll get five stars here, guys, you got it, Gogi, the fear we have, just nice, comment everything.