Kevin Durant Achilles Injury Mega-Thread (Keep discussion here, please)

[BuddyBuckets]

There was no way he wasn't gonna play. He's aa baller and it's the NBA finals. It's good to feel sorry for him, but there was no gun to his head. He knew the risks. He felt good enough to play.

[marcush]

This will haunt Golden State for a long time and rightfully so.

If he wouldn't have been out there for game 65 he shouldn't have been out there tonight.

I don't buy the medical guy's crocodile tears. If he knew KD was fit there's no reason for tears.

He was so upset because he knew he was pressured into playing a guy that he shouldn't have cleared plain and simple.

Are you talking about Bob Myers? He is not the medical guy, he is Pres of Basketball Ops.

[Domejandro]

This is now a mega-thread. Sorry for making it such a sloppy thread through merging, but frankly this needed to happen.

[TheBallsDeeper]

I didn't say the media and fans had any power in his decision to play. What I did say was they were basically calling him a liar and creating a false narrative of both KD and the Warriors (not that they handled it the best by the way).
The narrative pre game 5 certainly wasn't positive regarding KD, at all, so I don't know where you get it wasn't against him.
In some ways part of that was on the Warriors themselves for not giving out more information and being transparent, which lends itself to people making up absurd things, but there is no doubt the narrative prior to the hours before game 5 was anti KD.

So you say "this injury this really calls into question the media and fans.
KD was basically called a liar that the injury wasn't bad enough to sit out. If he had of sat out the series the entire basketball world would have come down on him even harder than they have before, which is saying something and I believe this is what these people wanted."

Then you say "I didn't say the media and fans had any power in his decision to play."

Which is it?

They didn't have any power in his decision to play. When did I say the media and fans had any power in his or any players' decision to play?
What has that got to do with anything that I said in my post?
I said it calls into question the media and fans for basically calling him a liar that the injury wasn't bad enough to sit out.
How is calling out the media and fans for making up complete lies about this entire situation equal to me saying they had the power of KD playing or not.
Seriously, how hard is that to understand?

Sometimes you need to admit that you made a stupid post and move on, instead of doubling down and looking like an idiot. For you, this is one of those times.

[M2J]

I think GSW, should've protected him from himself, but I think he believed he could really go. I want to know the circumstances around the first injury legitimately. Full answers, now that it's a done deal. Stop that shadiness

Then we can see why they let him play.

[marcroboy]

Just a few observations.

1)If KD's first injury was indeed just a calf strain. It should not increase Durant's chance of an Achille's rupture. One is a muscle injury and the other involves tendon and joint. This is why Bob Myer's said he does not believe the two injuries are related as he accepts this premise totally. If so, then we shall conclude that KD must be really unfortunate that he suffered a totally separate injury on the same leg, right when he rushes back from his first injury.

2)if you think the above is too unlikely, then you may conclude that maybe there's something wrong with KD's Achilles in the first place and by coming back early, it resulted in him suffering a tear on the Achilles.

I would think most people would find scenario 2) to be more likely. I mean before the game, even multiple media sources are worried about KD having an Achilles tear as the worst case scenario. And yet, he plays game 5 and goes on and does exactly that. I mean EVEN if they did all the right test and made the decision COLLABORATIVELY with KD, it still doesn't excuse them from the fact that the warrior's medical staff gotten the diagnosis wrong. I am not sure if KD was provided with the right risk assessment as I highly doubt he would be playing if he was told there's a chance he may rupture his Achilles.

[lonzo_pelota]

He can opt in and not become a FA so he is technically not losing any money from this, can he sue for potential lost earnings? Maybe so but since he's hella rich anyway it would be really stupid for him to sue.

sure he can opt in but will he get a supermax on his next deal coming off a Ruptured achilles will he make a all nba team again, he wanted to have free agent flexibility
kept signing 1+1 deals virtually having his team guessing if they're gonna have him the following year, tht kept his name on gossip and sports rumor sites, talk radio and the morning sports shows, But, all the other top tier players signed long term as they got past year 10, steph, lebron, harden, he played russian roulette now he may have screwed himself just a bit, pretty sure its easier to be john wall than Isaiah thomas when a career changing injury happens contract wise. I wish the guy good luck, i know he's financially good but im sure he wanted to maximize his career earning potential and his set a lot of records statistically

[PrinceV]

Being a dynasty team was more important to GS than KD as a human being.

[Mich3006]

Horrendous decision making by GSW staff

Risked his health to eke out a win

I guarantee KD wanted to play

Absolutely but the injury isn´t a surprise for all of us tbh. Really anybody knew that KD forced an early return.

He wasn´t near as healthy as needed to be on court with a serious calf injury. Now he´s out until 2020.

The coaching staff should´ve benched him, period.

[Showdown]

The media has poisoned the well in respects to KD.

Cheering his potentially career changing injury is completely in keeping with the theme for the last three years.

[sacking123]

So you say "this injury this really calls into question the media and fans.
KD was basically called a liar that the injury wasn't bad enough to sit out. If he had of sat out the series the entire basketball world would have come down on him even harder than they have before, which is saying something and I believe this is what these people wanted."

Then you say "I didn't say the media and fans had any power in his decision to play."

Which is it?

They didn't have any power in his decision to play. When did I say the media and fans had any power in his or any players' decision to play?
What has that got to do with anything that I said in my post?
I said it calls into question the media and fans for basically calling him a liar that the injury wasn't bad enough to sit out.
How is calling out the media and fans for making up complete lies about this entire situation equal to me saying they had the power of KD playing or not.
Seriously, how hard is that to understand?

Sometimes you need to admit that you made a stupid post and move on, instead of doubling down and looking like an idiot. For you, this is one of those times.

Are you trying to speak to yourself through me?
You can admit you made a mistake, it doesn't hurt. Seriously go back and think about it for a second.

[Mjan]

Always hated him joining GS but still always loved KD. What a heart he has shown tonight to risk his career and loads of money to help his brothers for a miracle. Really sucks that he did though, the stupidity is unbelievable.

[ratul]

Man, this sucks for KD and GSW management should be fired for this

[scrabbarista]

Personally, I believe this "it couldn't get worse" thing is simply the kind of miscommunication common to all rumors. Yes, it's true that his calf injury couldn't get worse - and it didn't. That said, I'm sure every doctor advised Durant not to play. That should be obvious from his rehab/practice schedule and trajectory. There's a reason that no one comes back with as little rehab/practice time as KD did: increased risk of injury. Everyone in the sports world on the entire planet knows this. Durant knew it and his doctors knew it. No doctor was telling him, "Sure, I think it's a great idea if you go back into the most intense basketball game in the world even though you've barely done any rehab/practice whatsoever! There's definitely no chance anything bad could happen!" But there's also a reason KD decided to make himself an exception: his team was down 3-1 in the Finals. I don't blame anyone for this injury, but I blame the doctors least of all. If I were to blame anyone, it would be anyone who pressured Durant to play even though they were neither a doctor, nor Durant himself, the only person privy to Durant's subjective physical condition. That might include Meyers, teammates, or Steve Kerr. It might include others like family, friends, fans, etc. Still, I think the decision was rightfully left to Durant after he was given the appropriate medical advice. The fallout of that decision remains to be seen, but I think there's an almost zero percent chance that fallout will include the word "misdiagnosis."

[spikeslovechild]

You guys are so ridiculous and petty and im sure some are jealous and just try to hate on anything related to the Warriors.

And still talking crap about the light years comment when we have made 5 finals in a row, won 3 out of the last 4 championships, have created a team that everyone seems to say is so good it destroyed competition and was unfair for the league. And then our ownership is privately funding a billion dollar arena? Who else has done those things?

And Bob Meyers? This guy is a good guy, a former agent who the players love. If you hear him talk you realize the humanity this guy has, and honestly so much of our team stresses how real life is more important that basketball, Kerr, Curry, Meyers, Klay, etc..

Meyers was there for Kerr when he was fighting through his back injury and always talked about his health before his coaching. This guy organizes a yearly trip to San Quentin prison to play basketball against the inmates and remind them people havent forgotten about them even with their histories. Even brought the championship trophy there.

This guy is a good guy, but people cant let go of rivalries and pettiness for even a minute to even see that. Pretty pathetic.

Just because someones/organization worldview aligns with yours doesn't make them good people and it easy to say the right things because words don't cost you anything.

It's much harder to do the right thing when you are down 3-1 in a championship game and doing so might lose you the championship. Does anyone think had the series been tied or the Warriors ahead he would have played?

Meyers clearly threw out an injured Looney. He rushed back Cousins. He rushed back Durant. He is not a good person and is messing with these guys careers.

"clearly" rushed them back??? How the heck do you know that? So these grown adults don't have brains to make their own decisions, or that the Warriors are paying doctors to give them false info? How do you know that Meyers is the one who was "pushing" these guys to play? Did he hold Klay back or play him too quick, since some people on here were also criticizing the Warriors for being too cautious? Do the players have any say in when they get to play or how they feel?

Sometimes you have to protect players from themselves instead there were leaks in the media about how disappointed the organization was Durant wasn't playing. Where did that come from? Kerr? Meyer? It didn't come from Durant.

And yes he was clearly rushed back early he went down the same way as before grabbing the same area his achilles.

[Ray Donovan]

He can make it bac

[GusT15]

There's no chance in Hell they didn't get a clear magnitude of the calf muscle tear in the MRI at the state of the art Medical Facilities they are treating athletes.

There's no way they missed out on an inflamed Achilles Tendon with microtears in the MRI.

You don't miss out on these things at the NBA Level.

We don't have the actual scan or results so we can only speculate about the nature of the injury,but the thing is that IF there were microtears and inflammation of the Achilles Tendon they saw it and they knew about it.That's a fact.

(And yes the Tendon could as well look and be perfectly healthy pre game and it just snapped when it snapped.It's not the most probable thing to have happened when taking in account the calf strain and 5 weeks of rehab,but it's a possibility)

[Zvaart]

You sound overly sensitive. Maybe take the night off, come back in the morning?

No dude, nobody is oversensitive. On the contrary, seems everybody lost their minds and it's a contest about who has the dumbest theories and most idiotic takes. Just look at the board.

[DonaldSanders]

Sometimes you have to protect players from themselves instead there were leaks in the media about how disappointed the organization was Durant wasn't playing. Where did that come from? Kerr? Meyer? It didn't come from Durant.

Not from anyone credible that covers the Warriors

[SappySkunk]

The way it was handled and with him tearing his achilles in 10 min, you see why people are jumping to conclusions. In the end, it happened and now we lose a prime season of KD (possibly with a new team).