OAKLAND, Calif. — Kevin Durant has been shooting from a chair from as far back
as the free-throw line with no legs involved. Not yet.
“Got to keep this jumper right,” Durant said with a smile, his injured left knee
protected in a bulky brace and his crutches parked nearby for the moment.
He also is riding a stationary bike as part of his rehab from the injured knee
and leg and doing well, yet Golden State coach Steve Kerr said it still could be
close to a month before the superstar forward is re-evaluated to determine his
status.
Durant returned to the Bay Area from the Warriors’ East Coast road trip after
getting hurt in a loss at Washington. He hyperextended his knee early in the
112-108 defeat Feb. 28 and later underwent an MRI exam, which revealed a Grade 2
– or moderate – sprain in the knee as well as a bruised tibia.
“It could have been a lot worse,” Durant said, noting he briefly received a
diagnosis it was far more serious. “I hurt my knee. A lot of guys go through
this throughout a season, a lot of injuries. It’s nothing for anybody to be
concerned about. I got a boo boo playing basketball. It is what it is, man. So
I’m OK. My spirits are good, my family’s good, I’m doing what I love to do every
single day.”
Kerr checked in by text message regularly with KD, then spoke to him by phone
Tuesday once the team returned to Oakland. The Warriors were only home briefly,
however, playing Wednesday night against Boston before heading back out of town
for games at Minnesota on Friday and at San Antonio on Saturday.
“I just talked to him, he was on the bike breaking a sweat,” Kerr said before
the game. “He says he feels good. It’s only been I guess less than a week, so
not really anything to report because it’s a good month before re-evaluate. So,
he’s doing as well as possible.”
Last week, the team said Durant would be re-evaluated four weeks after the
injury, so if he were fully healthy then it would leave about two weeks
remaining in the regular season. Kerr’s timeline Wednesday made it sound like it
could be for the final week before the playoffs if all goes smoothly in Durant’s
recovery.
Durant isn’t putting a timetable on when he could be healthy.
“I’m not even thinking about that right now. I know that’s what everybody wants
to know or are wondering,” he said. “Whenever my body tells me I’ll be ready to
play, that’s when I’ll be ready to play. I’m not really thinking too far down
the line, I’m just worried about having a great day today and I look forward to
having a good one tomorrow.”
Durant was leading the team in scoring and rebounding with 25.3 points and 8.2
boards along with 4.8 assists in his first season with Golden State.
“I think everybody is touching base with him hoping that his spirits are good,
and they seem to be,” Kerr said. “Really in the grand scheme of things, as I
told him, six weeks goes by pretty quick. He’s got a long life ahead of him.
It’d be great if we could get him back the last week of the regular season or
so. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
The Warriors, who began the night at 52-11 and with the NBA’s best record, spent
the early stretch of the season adjusting to Durant’s big presence on both ends
– and now they are figuring out how to keep in a groove without him.
“We know what he brings to the table every night,” Stephen Curry said at
shootaround earlier in the day. “He had only missed one game up until his
injury, so different rotations, a couple different play calls that we don’t run
now because they’re catered to kind of just getting him to a scoring spot. For
the most part our identity it is what it is and it’s always been that way.”
Durant has been watching games from his couch and yelling at the TV on occasion.
He sets daily goals in his recovery, such as last week’s chore of straightening
out his leg to gain range of motion. Strengthening will come along slowly, too.
Seeing his teammates and being at Oracle Arena on Wednesday night was a nice
boost, because “I didn’t feel like an NBA player this last week.”
“Mentally I’m good, I’m in a good place,” he said. “I’m not playing right now,
which is tough because I love to play, but I’m getting better day by day and
I’ll be out there as soon as I’m ready to play.”
