Durant opens up about Achilles injury, leaving Golden State
Kevin Durant — at least the one I came to know (to whatever ability one can know him) — speaks his mind.
While his thoughts on a matter might not come to the surface immediately, they always show up. And when he talks, you listen.
But for the last few months, people have been talking for Durant, suggesting that the reason he left the Warriors in free agency was because the team mishandled his calf injury, which turned into a torn Achilles tendon, a far more severe injury that will likely keep him out of his first season with his new team, the Brooklyn Nets.
It’s a damning accusation, and while the evidence never backed it up and the Warriors have publicly pushed back at the notion, it persisted.
But Durant finally shared his perspective on the matter,
speaking to Yahoo Sports’ Chris Haynes in an article published Wednesday.
The verdict? It’s exactly as I wrote after that fateful Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
“S--- happens. Nobody was responsible for it,” Durant told Yahoo Sports. “It was just the game. We just need to move on from that s--- because I’m going to be back playing.”
“Hell, no. How can you blame (the Warriors)? Hell, no … I heard the Warriors pressured me into getting back. Nobody never said a word to me during rehab as I was coming back.”
Is that enough to set the record straight? Of course, anyone who put in the effort to try to understand Durant or the tragic moment in Toronto already knew that was the answer.
Durant is a basketball junkie. For better or for worse, he is admittedly most at peace when playing the game.
Durant told Haynes that Game 5 was always his target, that no matter the situation (the Warriors were down 3-1) that he was always going to play in the NBA Finals.
And he was medically cleared to play — not just by the Warriors’ medical staff, but also by his own outside counsel.
It was just bad luck.
Could the Warriors have done a better job of resting him in that game? In hindsight, of course. But don’t ever forget that it was also an NBA Finals elimination game, and Durant was almost singlehandedly turning the series around.
Steve Kerr, ever the pragmatist, wasn’t keen to give Alfonzo McKinnie some run instead of letting perhaps the greatest scorer in NBA history give Toronto the business. The possibility that he could tear his Achilles was not even suggested before the game — the Warriors thought the worst that could happen is that he’d injure his calf again. Logically speaking, that makes sense: Why would the strongest tendon in the body go instead of a recently torn muscle?
Of course, that messy narrative didn’t fit into this day and age’s media machine. No, someone had to be immediately blamed for what happened in Toronto.
So the suggestion that the Warriors somehow forced a grown man to play in an NBA Finals game against his will — or at least misled him enough to get him into the contest — was pushed. After all, in such a ridiculous, unfair scenario, you either blame the entire Warriors organization or the guy whose career was likely irrevocably changed.
And when Durant left the Warriors this summer as a free agent, opting to sign with the Nets, that suggestion only grew louder. Durant switching teams was supposedly evidence that the Warriors were responsible for his injury.
The fact that Durant waited more than a month to speak publicly on his exit from the Warriors only stoked those flames.
But Durant was always going to speak. He’s ardent that he will tell his own story — on his own schedule. And now that he has, we can put that ridiculous, almost slanderous suggestion to bed, forever.
As for why Durant left the Warriors, likely ending the team’s dynasty in the process, Durant cited his friendship with Kyrie Irving, his admiration of the Nets’ playing style, and their front-office creativity.
But above all else, Durant told Yahoo it was “Because I wanted to.”