Hooped Up

Word is Kobe Bryant has already called Kevin Durant on behalf of Nike and that a shoe deal ranging between $30 million and $50 million simply needs to be presented.

Taras Brown, the man who sculpted Durant’s game back in Seat Pleasant, Md., and the man Durant calls his godfather, said a potential shoe deal - not Durant’s draft placement - would be what shoves Durant to the NBA.

“Kevin will go two or three years at Texas, if he could,” Brown said before the season. “It won’t be because Kevin Durant or (Ohio State’s) Greg Oden want to go. The shoe companies will make them an offer where it’s impossible not to go.”

The Olympian