A Feel-Smart (And Feel-Good) Story From Seattle

A Daily Babble Production

Rookies that consider themselves capable of forgoing summer league generally annoy me.

Kevin Durant and Jeff Green are proving themselves exceptions to that rule.

Sure, working on one's basketball skills is highly recommended, particularly after the maiden year in the Association.  Nobody on this planet is a perfect player, and Durant and Green in particularly have plenty to learn.

And that's the catch: It might not be on the basketball court, but there will indeed be plenty of learning going on for these two Seattle neophytes.

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As reported by Percy Allen of the Seattle Times, the two early draft entries from a year ago will be spending the summer furthering their post-secondary education:

When their rookie season ends, Kevin Durant and Jeff Green are going back to school.

Both admit that watching the NCAA tournament has made them nostalgic for college life, but their scholastic pursuits are greater than sentimentality.

Green, who left Georgetown after three years, said he's eager to walk across a stage and collect his degree.

Durant, who studied education, said he wants to take two classes each summer until he gets his degree.

Now that is cool.

It's cool on a number of levels.

It's cool that even though these two individuals were top-five draft picks who are likely set for life financially, they already understand that while basketball is likely to end for them over the next two decades, life isn't.

It's cool that this isn't something they see as an obligation.  Durant refers to finishing school as something he wants to do, as an accomplishment he wants to attain for himself.  It's cool that this means something to a 19-year-old basketball prodigy who has no immediate impetus to care.

It's cool that as role models for a coming generation of basketball fans, these guys are doing their part to make school cool for those who look up to them.

Perspective.  Future goals that aren't necessarily related to basketball.  A great example for young observers around the country.  Those would be three phrases that we don't seem to hear used in association with our athletic heroes nearly enough. 

But Jeff Green and Kevin Durant have earned them.

Pretty cool, huh?