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PHOENIX Suns star Kevin Durant opened up about his retirement preparations in an interview filmed before his successfully quest for Olympic gold with Team USA.
Not only did the 2014 NBA MVP won his fourth gold medal at the Paris Olympics, but also returned home as a minority owner of soccer powerhouse Paris Saint-Germain (PSG).
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Durant has achieved pretty much everything he could in professional basketball.
The 6-foot-11 forward has two NBA championship rings, an MVP award, 14 All-Star nods, among other achievements, making him a certain first-ballot Hall of Famer once he becomes eligible.
On the international level, he triumphed with Team USA at the 2010 FIBA World Cup in Turkey while his four Olympic golds are the most a male basketball player has ever won.
Also, Durant has claimed the MVP title at both the FIBA World Cup and the Olympics, the latter coming during the 2020 Tokyo Games.
No wonder the Texas product increasingly thinks about retirement, as he revealed in an appearance on TV One’s Raising Fame show.
“As I get older in the league and the league is getting younger, I tend to think about retirement more,” the hooper said during Episode 6, released on Sunday, August 11, per Suns reporter Duane Rankin.
Durant is known to breathe basketball on and off the court.
And during the show, he admitted to feeling a little anxious about his post-playing life.
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“Should I stop thinking about it? What is that? But it creeps on my mind for sure,” the Suns forward said.
“I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. I have a lot of different interests. I definitely want to stay around the game.
“I want to continue to build off the philanthropy and do stuff in our hometown, work with my mom and my aunt more. That’d be fun.”
Durant said he’s been building his business imperium for over a decade with his moves including the launch of multimedia companies Thirty Five Venture and Boardroom.
He’s also invested in sports, including soccer – acquiring a stake in MLS side Philadelphia Union – and pickleball.
Still, “that’s gonna be a huge, huge transition,” Durant, who will turn 36 in September, said of his retirement while suggesting he could see himself play for at least another two years.
As I get older in the league and the league is getting younger, I tend to think about retirement more
Kevn Durant
“I’ve been at this since I was eight. It was gonna be, hopefully it’s 30 years of me doing this where every day was centered around the game of basketball,” he continued.
“It hasn’t been no other lifestyle but this.
“So I want to just have some time and space to kind of like really step out that matrix and figure out who I am as an individual and then step into something and be ready for it.”
Durant has a very close bond with his mom, Wanda – whom he has famously called “the real MVP” in the past.
And the Suns star confirmed he’s been consulting with Mama Durant as he thinks about hanging up his sneakers.
“Of course we talk about this,” he said.
“We talk about… I don’t think I told her how often I think about retirement.
“But we talk about the stuff that I want to do, what I’m interested in.
“I want to practice now what retirement may look like.”
Boardroom announced Durant as the new minority shareholder in PSG on Monday.
The NBA star spent a few million dollars on a stake in the French champions through Arctos Sports Partners, the US private equity group that purchased 12.5% of the club last year, per ESPN.
