Who’s to blame for a non-contact injury? Anyone? No one? Well, according to Twitter (just a warning, this is going to be extremely “according to Twitter” and if you’re not like me and don’t spend all day on the worst website ever created I’d suggest you kind of move on because this whole thing is going to seem like a gigantic strawman argument against myself), one of two entities is solely responsible for Kevin Durant likely tearing his Achilles and completely changing the course of his career: Kevin Durant himself or the Warriors franchise.
Saying there’s a crowd of people blaming KD is a stretch; it’s more of a “the Warriors aren’t at fault.” That KD knew the risks, he’s a grown man who can make his own decisions, he’s a competitor who chose to be out there, etc. Did toxic masculinity injure Kevin Durant? All of which is 100% true, by the way. Kevin Durant chose to play. Saying this on Twitter has become an explosive take because the echo chamber known as NBA Twitter has decided that every ounce of “blame” for an injury falls at the feet of the Warriors. Why? Well, on NBA Twitter, every faceless, generic media member with a blue check mark has decided that every NBA player is their friend, so they have to take the players’ side no matter what, that the teams and owners are evil, and that the only valid opinion is whatever gets you the most Agreement Points from your fellow NBA Twitter members, save for the one annoyingly stupid opinion you have about some non-basketball, probably food-related topic you throw out on the timeline during the offseason to try and convince everyone you have a personality and weren’t just created in a factory that churns out media passes. Anyway. The argument is that the Warriors shouldn’t have cleared him and that they pressured him to play. Both of these can also be true. Of course they pressured him to play, they were down 3-1 and he’s Kevin Durant. Should he have been allowed to play? I don’t know, and no online doctor knows, either. Hearing Bob Myers and Steve Kerr say that they felt the initial calf injury was unrelated seems dubious. But maybe it was? Maybe this was just a freak injury. Or maybe it was a result of playing 12 of the first 14 minutes of an NBA Finals game on a tendon that may or may not have been iffy in the first place.
It’s easy to sit here the day after and say he shouldn’t have played. No, duh. But try and put yourself in KD’s shoes, for a second. Since he got hurt, every talking head has debated whether the Warriors are better without him or if they need him. It then morphed into KD is being selfish in a bizarre series of stories where unnamed sources in the Warriors were supposedly wondering why he wasn’t playing yet. Not to mention the millions of Twitter users who, before defending him against the evils of a corporation who wanted to succeed, called him a snake for joining the Warriors, constantly downplay and discount his greatness, and have questioned his heart and achievements for the last three years. Of course he wanted to play, how could he not? Maybe we should be blaming the online mob for this, but we all know that will never happen. That would require a level of introspection and nuance that doesn’t exist in 2019.
My thoughts? My thoughts are that it was a non-contact injury so blaming someone seems stupid? Injuries happen. It sucks, but it’s the nature of sports. He shouldn’t have played, but try telling Durant that. I bet you wouldn’t like his response.
Brian's Den 