Durant Gets Teammates In Gatorade Spot

Nick Collison claims Kevin Durant hi-jacked his commercial.

The Thunder’s reserve power forward insists the Gatorade spot that’s shown ad nauseam originally starred him, not Durant.

“Actually it’s my commercial,” Collison said. “I was surprised at how much airtime Kevin got. It was supposed to be my commercial. I don’t know if they thought he was just more camera-friendly or what.”

Collison, of course, was joking. And Durant, of course, doesn’t mind.

“I’ll take that,” Durant said. “He deserves it.”

Which is why Collison was a part of it in the first place.

Durant asked Collison and fellow teammates Nate Robinson, Royal Ivey and Cole Aldrich to join him in his most prominent promotional shoot yet. The commercial is called Durant’s Edge as part of Gatorade’s G series to promote the sports drink’s products that are said to enhance athletes’ preparation, performance and recovery. You can’t possibly watch an NBA game or tune into SportsCenter without catching the commercial on every other break.

Rarely do you see a star player’s actual teammates included in a commercial of this magnitude. But Durant didn’t think much of his teammates’ inclusion. Durant said the producers of the commercial asked him to get some teammates, so he did.

“The rest is history,” Durant said. “They wanted my teammates and they got them.”

Durant will have you believe he didn’t put much thought into their inclusion. “I just picked them,” he said. “I wasn’t really thinking about it. Those are the first guys I (saw) that day. I asked them if they wanted to be a part of it and they said OK. And it turned out pretty good.”

But we’ve seen Durant do similar favors for teammates. In the past, Durant has asked magazines to include teammates on the cover with him. And he has pulled strings to get teammates invitations to ball with President Barack Obama. Much like his request to have Thabo Sefolosha and Nenad Krstic join him on the cover of Sports Illustrated, Durant’s selection of Robinson, Aldrich, Collison and Ivey is another example of how he funnels attention to lesser known teammates who might otherwise consistently get overshadowed.