“I had so much help. So many people believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. So many people doubted me and motivated me every single day to be who I am. I fell so many times and got back up. I been through the toughest times with my family, but I’m still standing.” (Schultz) The National Basketball Association precisely chooses a player at the end of every season that they feel has exhibited talent and leadership above the rest. In his 2014 acceptance speech of the NBA’s most valuable player, Kevin Durant makes a persuasive argument about how he got to where he is today using his credibility, logic, and emotion. Many would not consider Kevin Durant an author because he hasn’t written a book. However, through the writing and presentation of his acceptance speech, Kevin Durant creates the story of his past for the audience, making him an author of his story and of this speech.
Durant uses credibility in order to persuade the audience of his past and what has brought him to where he is. The MVP award is selected by a series of votes taken by sportswriters, broadcasters, and basketball fans. A large number of these people saw that Durant had the talent and the leadership they were looking for, resulting in him being presented with the award of MVP. This demonstrates the level of respect and reverence that people have for Kevin Durant. Over the course of the speech he went on to single out each and every one of his teammates and described in what way they had helped him to reach earning MVP. Whether it was on the court or off the court, Durant gave account to real life stories that involved every player on the team. This shows the character of Kevin Durant and the time he took to recall the influence of each of his teammates. The audience can tell from the fact that all these players are here with him, making each statement or story he describes completely credible. He does this again when talking about growing up as a child. His mother and brothers are sitting in the audience clarifying the facts that he is stating they confirm as true statements. Having all these people in the room, help us to believe that everything Kevin Durant is saying in his speech is completely accurate which makes his speech so appealing to the audience.
Durant has an excellent way of presenting his points on why he got to where he is today. He is very clear in going through all the people and the circumstances that has brought him to this point. “I come from a small county outside of Washington D.C. called PG County. Me, my mom, my brother – we moved so many different places growing up. It felt like a box. It felt like there was no getting out.” (Schultz) This is a good way to present what he is trying to persuade because it gives the audience a very clear understanding and also helps the audience to relate. A majority of the audience knows Durant personally making each of these stories a flashback to the past. This being said, it helps not only the people who didn’t know about his past but also the people who were apart of his past to truly understand his feelings toward everything that has happened. He gives clear points and has a lot of structure in his speech. From the structure the audience can conclude that he put a lot of time and thought into what he was going to say and how he was going to say it. This makes a great characteristic of an author. He really cares about what he is writing and you can see that through what he says and how he says it. The length of the speech was twenty-six minutes long, meaning it is not something he came up with five minutes before he spoke it. He thought long and hard about what he was going to say and what he wanted the audience to understand from his speech.
Finally, Durant uses emotions such as humbleness, sadness, and humor in order to greater his persuasiveness in this speech. “We wasn’t supposed to be here. You made us believe. You kept us off the street. You put clothes on our backs, food on the table. When you didn’t eat, you made sure we ate. You went to sleep hungry. You sacrificed for us. You the real MVP.” (Schultz) While saying this, Kevin Durant had tears running down his face. This showed that what he said he meant with his whole heart and he truly feels he would not be in the place he was without his mother. Earlier in the speech Kevin talks about how his mother was a single mom with two children by the time she was 21. No one ever thought they would go anywhere in life. She pushed he sons to do their best and made sure to make it to every game that she could. This also brings out emotion to the mothers and families that have been though similar experiences. It gives them hope and encourages them not to give up but to go for your dreams no matter what they are. There are many other portions of Durant’s speech that offer up similar emotions. Talking about the encouragement of his teammates and the support of the program, Kevin isn’t afraid to show his appreciation through his emotions on stage which makes this speech much more persuasive.
In conclusion, through his 2014 acceptance speech of the NBA’s most valuable player, Kevin Durant makes a persuasive argument about how he got to where he is today using his credibility, logic, and emotion. Through this speech we can see that Kevin Durant is an excellent example of an author. He uses these three things in order to show people that through his rough past, teammates, and family he is now somewhere he never dreamed he could be. We often times don’t consider people in our day-to-day lives to be authors however, like in Kevin Durant’s case, sometimes the people we least consider are the most influential authors of all.