Kevin Durant has a lot of love for Austin, TX.<\/p>\n
The NBA superstar previously played one year at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin) in 2006. It was one of the best seasons of the program\u2019s history, according to<\/a> KXAN Austin. Durant was named<\/a> Collegiate National Player of the Year, ranking fourth nationally in scoring and rebounding, and led the team to the second round of the NCAA tournament, per the Texas Longhorns.<\/p>\n He went pro in 2007 and was drafted<\/a> by the Seattle SuperSonics. Throughout Durant\u2019s climb in the league and in business, he has continued to pour into Austin. He donated<\/a> $3 million to UT Austin in 2018, which went to Texas Basketball and the Center for Sports Leadership and Innovation, and paved the way for\u00a0the men\u2019s basketball facilities to be renamed<\/a> the Kevin Durant Basketball Facility for Men. The main entrance to Denton A. Cooley Pavilion was also named The Kevin Durant Texas Basketball Center.<\/p>\n Speaking of the university he said, \u201cThis was kind of the foundation, once you leave home and you kind of jump into the real world. This was my entry point. I learned a lot from people and I grew as a human being, which helped me grow on the basketball court. I lean on my former teammates and my Texas family when I go through a lot of stuff, so this was a vital time in my life. I hold on to it dearly.\u201d<\/p>\n Austin Sports Club<\/p>\n Currently playing for the Houston Rockets, Durant\u2019s next power move in Austin will take root in his first restaurant venture. The Austin Sports Club will be opening in downtown Austin in partnership including Durant, Rich Kleiman\u2019s Boardroom Hospitality, Airbnb<\/a> co-founder Joe Gebbia, and Lobos Hospitality.<\/p>\n The venture is described as \u201ca timeless restaurant reimagined for the modern athlete,<\/a> executive and tastemaker,\u201d a representative said, according to<\/a> the Austin American-Statesman. Austin-based Lobos Hospitality \u2014 which owns Manny\u2019s and the Powder Room downtown \u2014 is working on the menu. It is yet unknown what will be available to restaurant-goers, as it is still in development.<\/p>\n The restaurant is expected to open in Spring 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Durant has a lot of love for Austin, TX. The NBA superstar previously played one year at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":120199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[16312,132,134,133,2273,912,302,52353],"class_list":{"0":"post-120198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-afrotech","9":"tag-austin","10":"tag-austin-headlines","11":"tag-austin-news","12":"tag-black-community","13":"tag-investing","14":"tag-tech","15":"tag-wealth-building"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}