Long before Mark Cuban flushed a maximum NBA contract into him, Chandler Parsons stood inside a locker room, terrified of the words Kevin McHale had written on a dry-erase board. Eight games into his Rockets rookie season in 2012, Parsons stared toward the starting lineup matchups on the whiteboard: "Parsons/Durant." Kevin Durant was on an arc to league MVP, testing the resolve of Parsons, a second-round draft pick who lacked clearance from a French team in the week after the 2011 lockout and had one training-camp day as regular-season prep.