Injured Durant undergoes surgery

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Kevin Durant confirmed what everyone most feared: He underwent surgery for a ruptured right Achilles tendon.

Durant posted on social media Wednesday the severity of his injury two days after getting hurt during Game 5 of the NBA Finals in Toronto in his return from a strained right calf that sidelined him a month.

The 30-year-old posted a photo on Instagram showing himself in a hospital bed and wrote: “I wanted to update you all: I did rupture my Achilles. Surgery was today and it was a success, EASY MONEY.”

Just 15 minutes before Durant went public, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said during a finals media availability that he didn’t yet have a formal update on Durant. Durant has made his own announcements before, such as writing on The Players’ Tribune website about his decision to leave Oklahoma City to join Golden State in July 2016.

The Warriors said later Wednesday that Durant had the surgery at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York, performed by Dr. Martin O’Malley.

Kerr said everyone in the organization is “devastated,” including Dr. Rick Celebrini, the team’s director of medicine and performance.

The Warriors made a “collaborative” decision to clear Durant to play – with the input of Durant and his representative – and had no idea that Durant risked a serious Achilles injury by returning from a strained calf, Kerr said.

“Now, would we go back and do it over again? Damn right,” he said. “But that’s easy to say after the results. When we gathered all the information, our feeling was the worst thing that could happen would be a re-injure of the calf. That was the advice and the information that we had.