WHEN: Today, Tuesday, July 25
WHERE: CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit
Following are excerpts from the unofficial transcript of an interview with Boardroom Co-Founder and 2x NBA Champion Kevin Durant that took place today, Tuesday, July 25th, live during the CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit in Los Angeles.
Video can be found on CNBC.com
Mandatory credit: CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit.
KEVIN DURANT ON BUSINESS SUCCESS
We always push back to one another for sure. That’s good and pickleball you got me into Pickleball for sure. I like somebody said earlier, you look at pickleball you don’t really think it’s anything until you go into court and you see everybody having a great time and so many people from all ages can play forever. One of the things that I pushed back on early but he was just like yo just come check this out. You see where it’s going now. So it’s a lot of stuff that we you know, we may push back on.
KEVIN DURANT ON THE IMPACT OF AI IN THE NBA
AI? I don’t see it truly having any impact on the players. I mean, I think you’re starting to see more around AI more in arenas and expand experience in Arena experience might change at these games, but I don’t see how it can affect the players individually. But AI is taken over fast around the world, I’m sure. And I’m sure to creep into the NBA at some point.
KEVIN DURANT ON LIFETIME NIKE DEAL
The beauty of it now- by having a lifetime deal is that you really can create from the from ground zero, you know, we can really create from the sole of the shoe and build up from there and tell the stories that we want to tell with the biggest brand in the world like it was a goal of mine to get this done. And you know, we may have just talked about this over and over. Again, like so many days we talked about this over that’s the first thing we talked about when we got on the phone. So to see a come life and to actually be a real thing. It was it was special. So it’s a lot of potential here with my shoes, as you know, because I’ve been around so long so we keep building that
KEVIN DURANT ON NBA EXPANSION TEAMS
There can be, the NBA so huge but I don’t know if all the other owners will want to split that up. amongst new teams, you know, things are going so well. But yeah, I feel like it could be four or five new teams. Everybody loves basketball. And he’s and what these franchises do to a city I was a part of expansion like franchise and OKC and to see where their city was in 2008 2009 and to see where it is now it’s like four or five skyscraper buildings that I would have never thought would be there were sort of like hotels, trolleys to the city that like stuff that I would have never seen and I feel like a lot of that is because the injection of a sports franchise into that city
KEVIN DURANT ON MARIJUANA IN THE NBA
I actually called him and advocated for him to take marijuana off the banned substance list. I just felt like it was becoming a thing around the country around the world that it was the stigma behind it wasn’t as negative as it was before. It doesn’t affect you in any negative way.
