Durant poised to return, reinforce Warriors’ title chances
Stephen Curry can see it now. Sometime in the not-so-distant future, Kevin Durant will be back on the floor for a regularseason run-up to the playoffs, and their super team will be whole again. The Golden State Warriors announced as much Wednesday, saying Durant’s recovery from a Grade 2 medial collateral ligament sprain in his left knee and tibial bone bruise suffered Feb. 28 had progressed to the point where a regular-season return remains a possibility.
Barring a setback, Durant is known to be targeting the Warriors’ three-game homestand to close the regular season (April 8 vs. the New Orleans Hornets, April 10 vs. the Utah Jazz, April 12 vs. the Los Angeles Lakers). And as was the case in July, when Durant left the Oklahoma City Thunder in free agency, the rest of the NBA is about to have every reason to be concerned again.
“He’s our brother, and we obviously know he’s improving and getting closer to playing,” said Curry, whose Warriors entered Wednesday’s game at the San Antonio Spurs on an eight-game winning streak. “There will be a point where he’ll get back in the lineup and we’ll make the adjustments, and hopefully the ground- work that we’ve done since he’s been out will only make us better when he does come back.” Imagine that. As if we needed more reminders that the Warriors have set the bar at an extremely high level the last few seasons, their media relations man, Raymond Ridder, an- nounced the latest remarkable feat late Tuesday in Houston: Their win against the Rockets was the 200th in Steve Kerr’s three-season tenure, the coach reaching the milestone in fewer games than any other coach in professional sports history.
His combined regular-season record entering the game against the Spurs? A mind-blowing 20038 that beat the previous recordholder, Phil Jackson, by 32 games (with the Chicago Bulls, starting in 1989). What’s more, the Houston win also gave the Warriors a 60-14 record to make them the first team to reach 60 wins in three consecutive seasons since the mid-1990s Bulls (1995-98).
Kerr is always the first to say he inherited a tremendous amount of talent, and landing Durant last summer was widely seen as the Warriors’ coup de grace. But for a brief time after Durant went down in that game at the Washington Wizards, it was fair to wonder if they were vulnerable. Yet that sideways stretch in which they lost five of seven games was clearly an aberration, and now comes the prospect of a dangerous team adding a former MVP to its core — again.
Durant’s progress was there for all to see Tuesday night.
As always, he worked with Warriors assistant Bruce Fraser before the game, black leggings covering the tape on his knee below. He ran off would-be screens without so much as a grimace, pulled up for midrange jumpers that looked as silky smooth as ever. Durant, who is experiencing tightness in the knee but appears to have moved past the point of pain, is even offering emphatic dunks on a regular basis again.
Per the Warriors’ update in which they said he’ll be re-evaluated again in seven to 10 days, he is being incorporated into noncontact basketball drills (shooting, running, jumping), with a plan to up his level of movement over the coming days (explosive cutting and lateral maneuvers).
A return to contact drills and practice will come next, with vastly improved prospects of another championship to follow.