Kevin Durant's mom makes a cameo in 'Swagger' series on Apple TV+

Kevin Durant’s biggest fan of all is pleased that he landed with the Phoenix Suns after his disappointing stay with the Brooklyn Nets.

Then again, she would have been pleased to follow him anywhere.

“Wherever he goes to play, I’m going to be there,” Wanda Durant said of her son. “If he plays on the Moon, I’ll try to make my way there, too.”

She spoke to Newsday last week before a Tribeca Festival screening of Episode 1 of the second season of Apple TV+’s “Swagger,” which premieres on Friday.

Kevin Durant is an executive producer of the series, which is based on his life as a rising basketball star as a teenager.

That made his mother a natural for a cameo, and for the message she conveys in it to the mother of the series’ main character.

Asked in the show to offer advice, Wanda says, “Some of the people that love your son will love to hate him, but don’t let that get to him or to you.”

Wanda had a previous acting credit, also playing herself, in Kevin’s 2012 film, “Thunderstruck.”

“It was exciting,” she said of her appearance on “Swagger.” “Even though I have [only] a few lines, I was quite nervous. I think the coach on staff was really kind to me and talked to me and answered my questions whenever I had them and she really put me at ease with the few lines that I had.”

Durant said the series “loosely follows [Kevin’s] life, but in general it’s a life of an athletic team in an urban area striving to become professional basketball players.

“So that’s what it’s based around and some of the things they go through as a team and as individuals. But the one thing that resonated with me that is similar to me is the relationship that the mother and son have.

“She’s very close to him and she teaches him to stay focused on his goals.”

Isaiah Hill, a high school basketball standout from New Jersey in real life, plays Jace Carson, the central character in a cast full of young people – some of whom were basketball players who had to learn to act and some who were actors who had to learn to play.

Director Reggie Rock Bythewood said that was a delicate process, but one that created the kind of authentic basketball action he demanded.

It helped to have Kevin Durant, whose Boardroom is one of the series’ several producers, in the background overseeing the process.

“It’s everything, man,” Hill told Newsday. “For a young ballplayer who’s idolized K.D. his whole life, rocked the sneakers, watched the games, this is a beautiful way to be immortalizing the culture with Jace Carson. I’m excited.”

Hill said Durant is a “vocal” presence in the production process.

“He DMs me; we talk,” Hill said. “But he also tells me to trust myself, and that’s one of the most empowering things about being part of this project.”

Bythewood said, “I’ve been able to go to Kevin and have access and brainstorm and get ideas, whether it’s basketball-related and some things from his real life, while having the freedom and space to create what I want to create as a writer.”

The director helps capture realistic basketball actions using camera operators on rollerblades.

“There are so many things in the storytelling and getting it right about children growing up in America,” he said. “The integrity was really important.

“But the basketball is really important as well. Kevin Durant being in as our producer has a lot to do with it. We just really wanted to redefine the way basketball is shot, and really had a lot of fun doing that.”

By Neil Best

neil.best@newsday.com@sportswatch

Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.