How Durant Cured Small Market-itis

I'm not entirely sure what "small market" means these days, but I know it's bad. In fact, I'd go so far as to suggest that it's replaced "thug" as the NBA's most loaded bit of language. "Small market" is also easily among the most vague phrases in sports. When first we said it, did it refer to actual market size (population? television stations?), a team's national notoriety, or a general mediocrity that makes us turn away in disgust?

If only things were still so simple. By now, it's a euphemism, a put-down, and a cipher for pretty much anything negative about a team that's not L.A. or the Knicks.

Bad, broke teams with no fanbase present a slew of practical concerns. However, the small market stigma has taken on a life of its own. Teams and players find themselves dealing with the perception that they are somehow inferior, or invisible, before being given the chance to prove otherwise. To make matters worse, top prospects routinely end up with teams that, for all intents and purposes, might as well not exist for a broad swath of fans. Here's a good rule of thumb: When a star is born, don't steal his diapers. Thankfully, these days may be coming to an end.

There's no better example of the "small market"-itis -- and its eventual ouster -- than Kevin Durant. When the Sonics relocated, it was just assumed that the former UT phenom had dropped off the edge of the basketball earth. Oklahoma City sounded like oblivion; therefore, Durant was written about as a man drifting off in space, bound to switch cities at the first opportunity, and just generally being wasted. All because OKC fit the nebulous description of "small market."

Meanwhile, after Scott Brooks took over in the fall of 2008, it didn't take long for Durant to spread his wings and prosper. The Thunder's young core began generating buzz among NBA cognoscenti, and Sam Presti earned chin-stroking acclaim as a man with a vision.

While this year marked Durant's first All-Star appearance, he easily deserved it in 2009. Blame it on the bias against small markets, and the players cursed to wander their shores. Gilbert Arenas got snubbed in 2006 because he's a weird dude whose role on the court lends itself to derision. Durant, quite possibly the best player in the NBA not named Bron or Kobe, was a victim of ignorance. Voters, and coaches, either hadn't been watching him, or just assumed that anyone putting up numbers in the middle of nowhere was a mirage.

Luckily, Durant's fight for recognition seems to have shamed some fans (and coaches) into taking small-market players seriously. Actually, let's back that one up: Certainly, no one employed by an NBA team, and blessed with any small fraction of human intelligence, could have watched Durant and not seen he was gifted. But still, he could be docked, if not dismissed, for not playing real basketball.

That's how we end up with 13 Celtics on the All-Star roster every season. It's a tautology: Teams are only playing real basketball if people pay attention, and people only pay attention if we're told a team's playing real basketball.

This season's rookie class has seen two players benefit from Durant's struggles for recognition-and ultimate vindication. When Tyreke Evans and Brandon Jennings were picked by Sacramento and Milwaukee, respectively, we were expecting them to toil in obscurity. What's more, while Durant was an instant legend in the NCAA, Evans and Jennings didn't wield nearly that level of celebrity. Except at various points this season, each of these two rookies has been one of the biggest stories in the NBA: Jennings for his torrid start, and Evans as a game-changing force at age 20.

Stephen Curry came into the league riding such a wave of hype and universal glad tidings, you might think he'd have been hurt by people actually paying attention. Especially when the first half of the season was patchy, and the ceaseless announcer praise became harder and harder to justify.

Yet as Curry's come into his own, and proven to be much more than Dell's son, there has been a shift in the way he's discussed. Curry isn't a pure shooter with an off-the-charts basketball IQ and shaky game-manager's approach to the point guard position. Instead, he's a shifty scorer who attacks the basket and can handle in traffic. Plus more and more, he's finding ways to be just as aggressive running the offense.

Don't think for a second, though, that any of this yammering changes 2010. When it comes time to choose a destination, most of the players up for free agency will be looking to land in glamor spots. Durant has dropped hints that he'll have no problem signing an extension with the Thunder, and if Evans is the franchise player on a young, rising team, that move doesn't seem so far-fetched, either.

But Dwayne Wade, Chris Bosh, or Amar'e Stoudemire? Let's just say that superstars looking for a new home aren't about to eye lesser teams if they can avoid it. Old prejudices die hard; Durant and Evans are being given good reason to think differently. Simply telling Wade so isn't going to work.

And then there's LeBron James who, if you want to get technical about it, beat everyone to the punch on this one. James put his Cleveland on the map, raised its profile around globe; he's not just bigger than Cleveland, he's past markets themselves. Yet there's no reason to believe he'd be willing to do this for any city other than his hometown.

Similarly, you've got to figure that Durant and Evans don't embrace all small markets, just their own. Because after all, if you don't have anyone else to call small, how can you ever convince yourself that you're big?