Kevin Durant on Wednesday confirmed what everyone most feared: He underwent surgery for a ruptured right Achilles tendon.
Durant posted on social media the severity of his injury two days after getting hurt in 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 photograph on Instagram of 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 at a media availability event that he did not yet have a formal update on Durant.
Durant has made his own announcements before, such as writing on The Players’ Tribune Web site about his decision to leave Oklahoma City to join Golden State in July 2016.
Everyone in the organization is “devastated,” including Rick Celebrini, the team’s director of medicine and performance, Kerr said.
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, he said.
“Now, would we go back and do it over again? Damn right,” Kerr 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 reinjure of the calf. That was the advice and the information that we had,” he said. “At that point, once Kevin was cleared to play, he was comfortable with that, we were comfortable with that.”
“So the Achilles came as a complete shock,” he added. “I don’t know what else to add to that, other than had we known that this was a possibility, that this was even in the realm of possibility, there’s no way we ever would have allowed Kevin to come back.”
The two-time reigning NBA Finals Most Valuable Player was injured on Monday night in the second quarter of Golden State’s 106-105 victory that forced a Game 6 at Oracle Arena today.
The Raptors lead the best-of-seven series 3-2.
Durant was initially injured on May 8 in Game 5 of the NBA Western Conference semi-final series against the Rockets, then missed the next nine games.
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