Kevin Durant to mom: 'You're the real MVP'

Kevin Durant is a four-time scoring champ who averaged 31.9 points per game this season. (Layne Murdoch/Getty Images)

Kevin Durant was named NBA MVP on Tuesday, and later in the day, the 25-year-old delivered a poignant speech at the Thunder Events Center, in which he often became emotional, even saying at one point "I don't know why I'm crying so much, man," and calling his mother, Wanda Pratt, "the real MVP."

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Durant thanked each one of his teammates individually, saving Russell Westbrook for last, saying "I can speak all night about Russ," and adding that Westbrook is "someone who would run through a wall for me."

He also talked about growing up outside Washington, D.C.

"My dream was to become a rec league coach," Durant said. "That's what I wanted to do. I wanted to stay home and help the kids out and be a coach. I loved basketball so much, I loved playing it, I just never thought that I could make it to college, the NBA or stand up here in front of you guys and be the NBA MVP. It's just a surreal feeling and I've had to much help."

The entire speech can be seen here:

And here is a small sampling of the overwhelmingly positive reaction — and other snippets of the speech — from the Twitter-verse.