Please welcome the 2013-14 Kia N.
Most valuable player, Kevin Durant.
I'm usually good at talking, but I'm a little nervous today.
First off, I'd like to thank God for changing my life and really let me realize what life is all about.
basketball is just a platform in order for me to inspire people and I realize that.
I come from a small county outside of Washington D.C.
Me, my mom, my brother, we moved so many different places growing up and it felt like a box.
It felt like there was no getting out.
That's what I wanted to do, I wanted to stay home and help the kids out and be a coach.
I love basketball so much, I love playing it.
I just never thought that I could make it to college,
NBA, or stand up here today in front of you guys, NBA, NBA, MVP, it's just surreal.
so many people believed in me when I didn't believe in myself,
so many people doubted me and motivated me every single day to be who I am.
I've failed so many times and got back up.
I've been through the toughest times with my family, but I'm still standing.
In the game of basketball, I played first off because I love it.
I to run up and down the court.
I told Grand Hill back there.
I just got done playing against him.
As a second grad, I had a piston Grand Hill jersey.
That the first time I walked into a gym.
That's why I fell in love with the game.
My mom, I think she just wanted to get me and my brother out of the house for a couple of hours.
But when I walked into the gym, I fell in love with the game.
And I didn't fall in love with it just because it was me playing.
I fell in love with it because I got guys like this.
Like these guys every single day that push me to be the best player I can be.
Karan even though you just got here a few months ago.
Over these last few weeks.
And I can remember when you first got here, you wrote a piece of paper in my locker.
I don't know why I cry so much, man.
You wrote a piece of paper in my locker and said, K-D-N-D-P.
And that's after we had lost two or three straight.
And I don't really say much in those moments, but I remember that.
I go home and I think about that stuff man,
when you got people behind you, you can do whatever, and I thank you man, I appreciate you.
I know you guys think I forgot Russ,
but I could speak all night about Russell, an emotional guy who run through a wall for me.
And I don't want to it for granted, it's days where I want to just talk to him.
and tell you to snap out of it sometimes, but I know it's days you wanna do the same thing with me.
A of people put unfair criticism on you.
As a player, and I'm the first to have your back, man.
You the person you are, man.
I love you and last my mom I
Don't think you know what you did You have my brother when you were 18 years old Three years later, I came out.
We were stacked, the odds were stacked against us.
Single were two boys by the time we were twenty-one years old.
Everybody told us we weren't supposed to be here.
We moved from apartment to apartment by ourselves.
One of the best memories I had is when we moved into our, our first apartment.
No, no bed, no furniture.
And we just all sat in a living room and just hugged each other.
Because that's what we thought we made it.
When something good happens to you, I don't know about you guys, but I tend to look back to what brought me here.
You wake me up in the middle of the night in the summer times,
making me run up the hill,
making me do push-ups, screaming at me from the sideline of my games at eight or nine years old.
We weren't supposed to be here.
You made us believe you kept us off the street.
put clothes on our backs, food on the table.
When you didn't eat, you made sure we ate.
You went to sleep hungry.
