Kevin Durant Injury: Will He Return in Time for Postseason?
One minute into last Tuesday's match against the Washington Wizards, Zaza Pachulia fell into Kevin Durant's leg. The resulting injury was serious enough to take the Golden State Warriors' top scorer and rebounder of the season to the locker room and out of the rest of the game. Durant will be "out of action indefinitely."
When Durant hobbled out of the floor, carefully minding his hyperextended left knee, many feared that he was done for the season. According to a later report from The Vertical's Adrian Wojnarowski, the team braced themselves for the worse — the knee injury could spell the end of Durant's season, and even his career.
In a follow-up report from the National Basketball Association (NBA) website, Durant was immediately sent to the MedStar Washington Hospital in the District of Columbia area. There, his leg was subjected to a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan to get a conclusive diagnosis on his injury. The findings: a Grade 2 Medial Collateral Ligament (MCL) sprain and a tibial bone bruise.
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While the diagnosis is a lot better than the alternatives — such as a tibial fracture — Durant will be out of the game until after he is re-evaluated in four weeks. It is also possible that he will continue to be out, depending on the results of the re-evaluation, and there lies a big problem for the Warriors.
An optimistic estimate is that the Warriors star will return with a few games left in the remaining 22-game schedule for the team's regular season. However, if this estimate is off by two weeks or more, Durant will be woefully unprepared for the post-regular season gauntlet. There are still the rehab routines, the shooting, drills and contact work before he can even rejoin practice.
At least there's a bit of good news in all the misfortune the Warriors currently find themselves in. "Is it good news to miss one of your players with an injury like this? No, that's not good news," Warriors general manager Bob Myers said. "But I guess it could be worse, I suppose," he went on to say.
