Kevin Durant just needs to play basketball. Anyplace, anytime, against any level of competition. The NBA's reigning Rookie of the Year isn't content to simply rest up and prepare for next season in Seattle Oklahoma City. No, he apparently feels the need to show off and show up a bunch of players you've never heard of before.

Earlier this summer, Durant made a guest appearance in an Orlando Summer League game, one where he easily scored 22 points in 27 minutes against the likes of Marcin Gorat. And last night in Washington, D.C., Durant was there to play in some glorified rec league, where he put on a performance for the ages against a player so great he has at least three nicknames: Gerald "Gee" Brown, P. Shiddy, and the P-Man. Here's an excerpt from the eyewitness account:

Kevin Durant immediately starts taking over the game hitting nothing but jump shots beyond the NBA three point range. Durant would get the ball and use a quick crossover step back move to gain separation and nail jumpers with such incredible ease. As the game began to heat up, Durant's competitive juices started flowing as he and P Shiddy both exchanged 3 point baskets for about two minutes straight in the first half. All of this was to the delight of the now standing Goodman crowd.

In the second half, Durant started where he left off with a sweet mid range jumper for two but [the opposing team] Shooters with solid contributions all around ... opened up a 80-70 lead. That's when NBA rookie of the year Kevin Durant rose up and like Moses, led his Sweat Mob teammates to the promised land. Durant scored at will for the next 10 minutes of the half on a successive three pointers no less than 25 feet out to tie the score 100 with 2:47 left in the game.

I'm sure this was quite a show for the fans in attendance, but come on, is 60 points from an NBA star against a bunch of nobodys with obnoxious nicknames really that impressive? I mean, in these types of leagues, it's not like teams play defense or the traveling rules are actually enforced. You know what though? Maybe I'm just not getting it from Durant's perspective. I think I'll head down to the local middle school and drop 50 on some 4th graders.

With the NBA's overwhelming success in capturing a giant slice of the giant Chinese market -- thanks to Yao Ming, of course -- Sam Dolnick of the Associated Press looks into the league's steps toward elbowing into another major Asian market: India.

Dolnick reports that, along with the lack of an Indian Yao, the major obstacle is basketball infrastructure -- courts and coaches ... basically the opposite case as in the United States, where basketball has long been the preferred game of the urban city due to limited equipment and space requirements.

Right now, basketball is the sport of the rich in India.

"My students, they go to U.S., Europe, and there they have so much of a basketball culture," said Deepak Shukla, who coaches a basketball team at an exclusive New Delhi school. "They have Shaquille O'Neal shoes they get from U.S. ... My students are from (wealthy) families."

"The poor people will play cricket," he said. Basketball "requires great infrastructure and money."

At this point, the NBA's outreach seems limited to a few Basketball Without Borders program visits in New Delhi. (Ronny Turiaf and Kyle Korver visited this summer; Kevin Garnett attended in 2006.) It might be a big gamble to invest a ton of money in nascent professional or semi-pro leagues in the subcontinent, but the NBA has long taken big gambles in major international markets. Bolstered by success in China, it wouldn't be surprising to see the league go full-bore into India.

As we've mentioned before, there is significant evidence to believe that David Stern and Clay Bennett are good friends (I think actually, it's a fact, if that is a provable statement). This friendship took another convenient twist with the latest news re: hijacking Seattle.

How else can you explain the subsequent timeline of events: Bennett signing a settlement that agrees to return the Sonics if Howard Schultz wins his lawsuit followed immediately by the NBA getting elbow deep in that same court proceeding? That's right, the NBA itself is now filing motions to dismiss Schultz' lawsuit.

The NBA claims in its motion that the transfer of the franchise to a court-appointed receiver and a subsequent transfer back to Schultz would both be prohibited by the league's constitution.

The motion also claims that if a court-appointed receiver were to be appointed, the NBA's constitution allows for the league's owners to put that team "under the management and control" of commissioner David Stern.

"The relief requested by plaintiffs is entirely inconsistent with these reasonable and lawful regulations of the NBA, and the disposition of this action therefore threatens the ability of the League to protect its justifiable interests," attorney Ralph Palumbo wrote in the motion.

And yes, there's a pile of legalese in there. But my understanding here is that the NBA has rules in place to avoid a league owned team (that's a good rule) and they're using it to nullify Schultz' suit (that's a pretty malevolent application). And if you think that the NBA's lawyers just managed to come up with this, well, you're wrong.