Just look at the time line, either the Warriors medial staff are spectacularly inept or the org just didn't care because they thought he was leaving and wanted to milk him for one last chip:
1) Initial injury, nearly everyone thinks it's an achilles injury. Warriors claim its a mild calf strain, but are weirdly vague
2) A few weeks later Kerr admits injury is more serious than initial thought:
Golden State Warriors Coach Steve Kerr acknowledged Thursday night that Kevin Durant won’t be returning to the court anytime soon because of the strained calf he suffered in Game 5 of the team’s playoff series with the Houston Rockets last week. Durant hasn’t been cleared for on-court work, Kerr said, and won’t be evaluated again for another week. Suffice to say, he won’t be traveling to Portland with the team for Games 3 and 4 of the Western Conference finals on Saturday and Monday and almost certainly won’t be fit for Game 5 on Wednesday if it comes to that. Games 6 and 7, if necessary, seem doubtful, too.“Hopefully he continues to progress, and he has made progress, but it’s a little more serious than we thought at the very beginning,”
3) After several week, expectation is KD will retrurn in game 3 or 4- doesn't end up happening, Kerr says he's no longer going to give any updates
4) Some people in the warriors org/ teammates start briefing against KD, making out he could play if he wanted to, pressuring him to return:
Kevin Durant's continued absence in the NBA Finals has reportedly started to wear on the Golden State Warriors—and not just on the court.Sam Amick of The Athletic reported "irritation grew" in the Warriors locker room following Game 4's loss to the Toronto Raptors. DeMarcus Cousins, Kevon Looney and Andre Iguodala have been playing through injuries during these Finals, and players "simply didn't understand why [Durant] wasn't there."
Amick added that within the Warriors, expectation was that Game 5 was the earliest Durant could return. However, there was hope that he'd be able to make it onto the floor earlier than expected with their season essentially on the line.
"We're hoping [Durant] can play Game 5 or 6," Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters before Game 4. "And everything in between I've decided I'm not sharing because it's just gone haywire. There's so much going on, and so it doesn't make sense to continue to talk about it. He's either going to play or he's not.”
Again a weird cryptic comment by Kerr saying there's "so much going on"
5)As if by magic KD is now ready to practice, does one extremely brief one: One insider tweets it was very short and he couldn't have done much and he was first back in the locker room.
Jalen Rose witnesses the workout/practice and says KD looks no where near ready "it didn't go well on any level"
On top of that he's pictured with an ice pack clearly on his achilles. Another insider says they saw him being injected in the achilles earlier in the week:
6) As if by magic, Durant is now cleared to play WITH NO MINUTES RESTRICTION. Nearly every online medical opinion says that playing with a strained calf muscle (if you even buy that it was a calf injury and not an achilles strain) puts your achilles at risk. Yet the Warriors tell kerr there's no increased risk of him aggravating the injury or causing further damage. WTF?!?!
7) Kerr says he'll play in short bursts, then proceeds to play him for 12 of the first 14mins. What a surprise, KD tears his achilles.
Jesus, that's just messed up on so many levels. I think it was an achilles strain from the start- I find it hard to believe they missed that, or else why was he icing his achilles throughout the rehab? I find it hard to believe they'd miss the achilles injury (especially considering they were icing it and injecting him in the achilles area). But if they did know it was the achilles, why would they send him out AND claim there was no risk of further injury?
I'm still fuming about this, not just for the Knicks, but for KD- I think he got royally screwed so no wonder he was reportedly raging when he tore it (reports of him cursing out the Warriors org/owner)
