Last night marked the first time Kevin Durant had played since the passing of beloved former Sportscenter anchor and ESPN reporter and on-air talent, Stuart Scott. Scott, 49, passed on Sunday morning, and the testimonials and the remembrances can only do the outsized ESPN personality a small measure of justice. KD paid homage to the ESPN maestro with a personalized message on the Nike KD VI pair of kicks he wore last night.
Despite struggling from the field in a 117-91 shellacking at the hands of Warriors, Durant wanted to offer up a personalized tribute to Scott and his bombastic presence on sportscenter and elsewhere — including covering the NBA on occasion.
By way of NiceKicks comes the above image where you can see KD wrote “BOO-YAH RIP the great Stuart Scott” with a sharpie on his Nike KD VI’s before the game.
Durant also paid his respects — like many NBA players who grew up watching Scott on TV — with a message on Twitter:
Rest peacefully in Paradise Mr. Scott, we miss you and Love you!
— Kevin Durant (@KDTrey5) January 4, 2015
The estimable Scott passed while fighting cancer for the third time in his life. But you’d never notice he was battling the Big C if you were just to watch him smile while talking about sports. A brave man if there ever was one.
We’ll let his former colleague, Keith Olbermann, offer his own on-air eulogy talking about the courage of a man we’ll all be missing for some time. Believe it or not, Scott’s oft-imitated on-air schtick was – GASP — considered verboten before Stu came along and made it OK to talk about sports in a different way.
We’re gonna miss you Mr. Scott. Hopefully right now you’re looking down and doing play-by-play for all the folks Upstairs.
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