Kevin Durant is a top 20 player of all-time if retired tomorrow. All things considered.

flashplayer said:

---

aggie-master said:

---

I want to start by saying I know absolutely nothing about the kind if injuries Durant has recently had, but how does having a small tear in the muscle then cause the tendon to snap?

When I just imagine the situation he had, it seems like he would mostly be at risk for a repeat or worse version of the initial injury instead of a separate and nearby injury. Can anyone here explain?

---

It's not really a separate injury. The calf muscle is held to the bone by the Achilles. Calf injuries put more strain on the Achilles. This is a known fact. Those claiming a Medical mystery are ignorant of these facts.

---

I don't know, there have been a lot of guys play through an injured calf.

Here's a real interesting article on when Aaron Rodgers did it in 2015 (interesting in the light of Durant's injury, not interesting otherwise). The words of this orthopedic surgeon with Cleveland Clinic Sports Health and former team physician with the Cleveland Browns almost mirror what Kerr and others were told:



He said that typically it takes a few weeks to a month of inactivity for a moderate, or Grade 2, calf strain to heal, but with the care provided professional athletes there are things that can be done to quicken the process.

Since athletes like Rodgers don't want to miss any time, the best doctors and trainers can do is treat the injury aggressively. There isn't much risk that the injury would affect Rodgers later in his career...

"You try to get the swelling out and get it functioning a little better," Ostrander said. "The body usually responds to some motion and some firing of the muscle at levels that aren't going to do damage but lower levels that are actually going to stimulate healing."

Playing with the injury puts stress on other parts of the body because of the compensation needed to protect it, but Ostrander said something serious like a torn Achilles tendon is unlikely to happen as a result of playing with a calf injury. The risk is just making it worse.

ATM9000 said:

---

Gigemags382 said:

---

Oh come on. Everyone knocked Durant for his move to the Warriors and knew he would not be able to build a "best of all time" argument when he's not even "the guy" on his own team. Everyone knew he would need to win championships at his next stop to be in the best ever conversation. That's gone now without a miraculous comeback from this injury. Don't get all mushy with this injury and start saying his championships with the Warriors are enough. He joined a freaking 70 win team.

---

'Everybody' didn't knock him for that... and this sounds very much like the LeBron to the Heat narrative. Then he wins a couple there and he's one of the greatest of all time. Absolutely no different for Durant's legacy.

---

The Heat with only Bosh and Wade without LeBron would not have been even remotely close to the Warriors pre-Durant. Beyond that, at least they went in together to form a team. Durant literally joined a team that had already just won 70+ games with 2 finals appearances and one championship. I'm not defending LeBron's move to Miami, but it's not even in the same discussion as what Durant did. LeBron was the face of the Heat's championship runs. Durant was not for the Warriors.

Then he went back to a Cleveland team that had won 33 games the year before, and proceeded to go to 4 finals and win one. Maybe Durant will do the same. In which case that's a great statement for his legacy. My argument is that it's highly likely he no longer will be able to do that after an Achilles tear. He will never return to the same form. He thought he'd be able to go to the Warriors and win a few championships before moving on to another destination still in his peak prime. That's no longer the case.

As I posted a bit earlier, I think Durant's legacy has been actually been helped by how this 2019 NBA Finals has played out. The 'legacy' narrative of Durant will likely evolve to be that, although Durant joined a 70 win team and there was backlash to that, the Warriors did probably need him to win the 2017 and 2018 titles - in particular 2017 because that LeBron/Kyrie Cav team was REALLY good offensively. And then when he tried to give it a go for his team in this 2019 Finals with them down 3-1 in the series, he 'took one for the team' and suffered a career altering injury.

Obviously some folks will continue to hold Durant going to the Warriors against him for eternity, but just watch. You can already see the sympathetic and positive narrative about Durant that I described above in much of the sports media. 'Legacy' is a lot about narrative in addition to results, and Durant's story has now definitely taken a different turn than had the Warriors been 100% healthy this playoffs and cruised easily to their 3rd straight title with him.

Has it helped his legacy as compared to what it was a week ago? Absolutely!

Has it helped relative to what it potentially could have been if he went on to be the face of a franchise that wins a couple championships over the next few years (which I argue was very possible pre-injury but I believe is highly unlikely now)? That's silly.

Gigemags382 said:

---

Has it helped his legacy as compared to what it was a week ago? Absolutely!

Has it helped relative to what it potentially could have been if he went on to be the face of a franchise that wins a couple championships over the next few years (which I argue was very possible pre-injury but I believe is highly unlikely now)? That's silly.

---

Win a couple of championships over the next few years on the New York Knicks, whom many seem to feel is one of the worst managed professional organizations in all of sports? I guess if hypothetically Anthony Davis and Kyrie Irving or Kemba Walker joined him to form a new 'super team' and they hired a good coaching staff, etc, etc....yeah maybe the Knicks would have gotten their act together.... I agree the odds of any further titles (unless he stays at GSW) is lower now than whatever it theoretically might have been before.

I guess it depends on what we mean by "one of the best of all time" and what Durant's expectations were for the legacy he wanted to leave. Since we haven't defined that what that is, we could be saying the same thing and not realizing it.

Is Durant in consideration for top 25 all time? Yes. Does this injury help that argument relative to if he'd gone on to do nothing with the Knicks? Yes.

Is Durant in consideration for top 10 all time? No. Does this injury help him get there? No. He would have needed to go on to his own team and win championships.

If that was never the expectation, then fine. But of course we're talking hypotheticals here. He's only 30 years old, and had several peak years ahead of him with high expectations. That's kind of my entire point. The expectations for the upside of the legacy he could have potentially left is SEVERELY diminished.

But sure, this injury will put his legacy in a more positive light relative to if he had gone on without this injury and never accomplished much with the Knicks or whoever his next team is. He'll have the Achilles injury "excuse" now whatever happens (I don't mean that he'll use it as an excuse, just that we'll never know what he would have gone on to do without it).

But top 10? No. Not unless he recovers from this Achilles unlike any athlete has before, especially at 30. I suppose in that light one could argue that this actually increases the highest upside potential for his legacy. Say he returns in a year at peak pre-injury form and goes onto win 3 championships for the Knicks. Talk about a legacy there and catapulting him in the "best of all time" conversation. But that's just very unlikely given the history of Achilles injuries in sports.

In terms of ranking him in a 'best of all time' list...if we assume he only say had another couple of All-Star level seasons left in him after he comes back from this injury...I guess we'd have to run through lists to see where he might end up at.

My guess is Top-15-ish. Top-25 seems like would probably be a bit low, in terms of where most would rank him.

I'd personally probably rank him in such a list about wherever a guy like Shaquille O'Neil ended being ranked at. Which is a pretty great 'legacy' in its own right if that is how it settles out.

Shaq is generally around 10 in most lists I've seen. Higher more often than lower. You have a right to your opinion, but that's quite ambitious for Durant today...I believe that's pricing in several more top-notch years which we all expected him to have but is now unlikely. I believe it's a tough argument to get him in the top 15 as it stands today. He absolutely had a chance to get there (or even higher). I just don't see it now. We'll probably just have to agree to disagree.

I'm a huge LeBron fan and have him at #2 like I think most do. But if LeBron tore his Achilles in the exact same scenario (coming back early from an injury down 3-1 in the finals) at the end of his time with the Heat, and never got back to his original form, it's very unlikely he would have gone on to do what he did at Cleveland. And without that, in my opinion, would never sniff the #2 argument despite any sympathy he might have built up.

No worries about disagreeing on ranking lists. Heck, not sure you could ever get 2 people in the world to fully agree on a Top-10 list of something.

In terms of NBA All-Time players, I could probably just go this far in my own list:

1) Jordan
2) LeBron

And right there have a large number of folks start disagreeing with me, some folks (probably mostly under 35) arguing LeBron should be #1 and maybe some older than me folks trying to argue for the awesomeness of Wilt.

Gigemags382 said:

---

ATM9000 said:

---

Gigemags382 said:

---

Oh come on. Everyone knocked Durant for his move to the Warriors and knew he would not be able to build a "best of all time" argument when he's not even "the guy" on his own team. Everyone knew he would need to win championships at his next stop to be in the best ever conversation. That's gone now without a miraculous comeback from this injury. Don't get all mushy with this injury and start saying his championships with the Warriors are enough. He joined a freaking 70 win team.

---

'Everybody' didn't knock him for that... and this sounds very much like the LeBron to the Heat narrative. Then he wins a couple there and he's one of the greatest of all time. Absolutely no different for Durant's legacy.

---

The Heat with only Bosh and Wade without LeBron would not have been even remotely close to the Warriors pre-Durant. Beyond that, at least they went in together to form a team. Durant literally joined a team that had already just won 70+ games with 2 finals appearances and one championship. I'm not defending LeBron's move to Miami, but it's not even in the same discussion as what Durant did. LeBron was the face of the Heat's championship runs. Durant was not for the Warriors.

Then he went back to a Cleveland team that had won 33 games the year before, and proceeded to go to 4 finals and win one. Maybe Durant will do the same. In which case that's a great statement for his legacy. My argument is that it's highly likely he no longer will be able to do that after an Achilles tear. He will never return to the same form. He thought he'd be able to go to the Warriors and win a few championships before moving on to another destination still in his peak prime. That's no longer the case.

---

What? Durant won the Finals MVP for both of the championship teams he played on. 'Not the face'... what does that even mean.

And I always get laughed out of the room when I say this... but regardless, the Warriors team Durant joined weren't title winners and lost 3-5 rly important players to their team between 2015/16 and 16/17. Bogut and Barnes were bother wildly important to what they did and to a lesser extent so was Ezeli and Speights. None of them were superstars but the Warriors weren't remotely a championship team with none of them and no Durant.

Head Ninja In Charge said:

---

Kevin Durant is a top 20 player of all-time if retired tomorrow. All things considered.

---

Easily. I'd say higher.

Sat next to him on a plane once early in his career. Could not be a nicer and more humble guy. Really feel bad for him.