Hard to get a feel yet whether there is a palpable sense of panic over Kevin Durant’s foot injury, or whether everyone is drinking Sam Presti’s Kool-Aid and expecting the reigning MVP back sometime around Dec. 1 — the best-case scenario laid out by the Thunder when the news of the injury broke Sunday.
If Durant only misses the first four to five weeks of the season, OKC will be OK. The Thunder are already established as an elite Western Conference team, and whether they finish second or fifth in the conference as a result of Durant’s absence over the first one-fifth of the season, they will still be a beast in the playoffs if they are at full strength. We already know that.
Whether or not the Thunder are championship-worthy is another matter, and it will go a long way toward determining Durant’s long-term future (More on that here in this rundown of the 2016 free agency class).
But as for the short term, you know what Durant’s injury does? It opens up the MVP race for Russell Westbrook, who has never been the top banana on Oklahoma City. Now he will be – at least for the first month. And there won’t be any grumbling when he takes 20 shots a night. Heck, folks might grumble if he fails to take 30.
(RELATED: DURANT OUT INDEFINITELY WITH FOOT FRACTURE)
More on the impact Durant’s injury will have on the Thunder in this video report with CineSport’s Brian Clark:
Got to disagree with you on this one Chris. Its premature to speculate until at least after the surgery is completed. This 6-8 weeks is best case scenario, assuming he has a titanium screw inserting into his 5th metatarsal and Thunder don’t play it safe.
Nets didn’t “play it safe” with Brook Lopez (out for 9 weeks) and a fine fracture around the screw developed (missed whole season). Big Baby played it safe and missed rest of his season, only to require another 2nd surgery that June. I believe that the bad histories of this injury outnumber the good ones and 5 weeks is certainly out of the question.
Worse, there was no documented injury event, meaning it could re-occur at any time. Therefore caution would be the wise thing for Thunder to do. I’d be surprised if Durant plays before January missing At Least 30 games. 5th place may be the best case scenario for the Thunder, if they are cautious and if Durant doesn’t require additional surgery or Westbrook doesn’t haven’t another injury, after trying to do too much.
If Thunder can play close to 500 ball without Durant, then he didn’t deserve the MVP last season.
BTW, most of these players were told after surgery they would miss 6-8 weeks.
Foot and Knee injuries can be brutal.