Good things often arise from injuries
Who is the Warriors’ MVP of their current 11-game win streak? My vote goes to Kevin Durant.
But please don’t interpret that as me saying the Warriors are better off without their injured forward. I don’t want to wind up on Draymond Green’s enemies list.
Durant’s absence has forced the Warriors to fight through adversity, figure stuff out and play better. They’re not better now than they can be when Durant returns, but they have improved in terms of confidence, focus, ball movement, defense ... and self-esteem.
This has led some experts to speculate, mostly in a humorous vein, that the Warriors are actually better without Durant. Apparently, the Warriors don’t find
that kind of talk humorous.
I asked Green, after Sunday evening’s 139-115 win over the Washington Wizards, whether the Warriors kid Durant about how they might not need him to hurry back from his sprained knee ligament.
“Hell, no — absolutely not!” Green said. “He’ll fit right in (when he returns). But we don’t need him to That’s where people kind of get it mixed up. He wasn’t brought here to He was brought here to
We don’t need him coming back to fit in with what’s going on. We need him to come back and be KD. And that’s what he’ll do.
“We don’t really joke. It’d be foolish for anyone, especially us, to do that. There’s definitely no jokes, and we can’t wait for him to get back.”
OK, OK. But it’s certainly possible that because of the way the Warriors have rallied and rebounded from that stretch of losing five of seven games, that when Durant returns, they will be superior to the Warriors’ pre-injury team, and that was a pretty good team.
Some of the stuff that has happened in Durant’s absence:
Stephen Curry has stepped up his game: passing better, shooting better, locking down his title as the NBA’s Fanciest Finisher. On one preposterous drive through the Wizards’ defense Sunday, Curry spun the ball so hard off the glass, at such a crazy angle, that Minnesota Fats applauded from his grave.
The bench has come alive, especially old folks Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston and David West. If the league drug tests these guys, the Warriors’ better hope Geritol is legal.
Green has led a team uptick in defensive intensity. One small example: The Warriors blocked 10 shots Sunday. Blocked shots can be very demoralizing.
If this 11-game streak hasn’t locked down Defensive Player of the Year honors for Green, and given Klay Thompson a spot on the First Team, the Russians are messing with the voting. I hate to say this, and I hope Green doesn’t read it, but no team in sports can match the Warriors when it comes to good timing of their injuries. Four quick examples: Andrew Bogut was injured for the playoffs three seasons ago, and without him, the Warriors lost to the Clippers in seven games in the first round. Had the Warriors won that series, Mark Jackson probably wouldn’t have been fired.
Even though co-owner Joe Lacob was leaning toward firing Jackson, it would have been hard to can a head coach after he took the Warriors into the second round. If Jackson had been given another season, no Steve Kerr.
When Curry endured multiple ankle injuries earlier in his career, he was forced to sign a much smaller contract than had he been fully sound. The money saved has been put to good work, and Curry ain’t starving.
Two seasons ago, David Lee missed 24 of the first 25 games with a hammie. He was a key cog in Kerr’s brand new offense, and the team’s first AllStar since 1997. Who was forced into the starting lineup, into a pressure role? Draymond Green.
Green was coming along nicely, anyway, but the promotion to the starting lineup gave Green and the Warriors a huge shot of confidence. It made them much stronger on defense, more energetic and intimidating, and gave Green a stronger platform for leadership.
A glaring exception to this Lucky Injury theory is Curry’s sprained knee ligament during last season’s playoffs. Nothing positive came of that, except maybe a grittier resolve by the players to make things right this season.
Assuming Durant’s recovery is as encouraging as it looks, and he returns to action in time to ramp up his game for the last two or three rounds of the playoffs, the timing of the knee sprain — not the injury itself — will have been fortunate.
Lucky injuries? That’s a weird concept, so let’s keep this between us.