Should we be excited about Michael Brantley’s first on-field BP session?
February 28, 2017David Griffin, Wizardly Genius: 2016-17 Edition
March 1, 2017
Happy Wednesday, WFNY!
And welcome to March, my friends! We made it! February, traditionally the worst month of winter, is behind us1. As far as sports months go, March and April are pretty great. March is the last full month of regular season NBA basketball. Then we have March Madness, followed by the Masters. And of course, we have the return of baseball.
The big news this morning, though, is the injury to Kevin Durant last night. Now, I feel the need to say this upfront because I know in this internet age we live in that someone will try to twist this and put words in my mouth, but I am in no way, shape, or form, happy that Durant got hurt. I wasn’t rooting for injury before and I take no pleasure in seeing any kind of knee injury to anyone. I need to be unequivocal about this. Durant seems like a good dude and it’s awful to see him go out like that. We don’t know the extent of his injury as of this writing, but I think we can all agree that we’re happy it’s not as serious as it looks like it could have been had Pachulia landed on his leg slightly different.
However, just because I’m not happy about the injury doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it and what it potentially means for the Warriors and the Cavaliers. Now, again, we don’t know the severity of the injury yet. It could be a simple hyperextended knee which could sideline him for a couple weeks. If there’s structural damage to any of the ligaments, though, it could be a serious problem. And, for what it’s worth, the mood surrounding Durant and the Warriors was pretty somber last night.
Sources on @TheVertical: Fears surrounding Kevin Durant's knee injury, MRI exam leave his Warriors season in peril. https://t.co/tnBGfYtzVN
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) March 1, 2017
If Durant does indeed miss the rest of the regular season, there could be some interesting fallout from that. The Warriors without Durant are still pretty damn good. The core of the team that has terrorized the rest of the NBA for the last few years is still there. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston, all still there. But losing Durant makes the Warriors suddenly look very thin.
Golden State currently holds a four-game lead over the San Antonio Spurs for the top spot in the Western Conference. If the Warriors slide without Durant even the slightest bit, it opens the door for the Spurs to overtake them for the top seed. Doing so would potentially force the Warriors to have to face the feisty Houston Rockets in the second round and then the Spurs in the conference finals before their rematch with the Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. That is a significantly more arduous path than playing the Utah Jazz in the second round and then only having to play the winner of a potential Rockets-Spurs series.
And what if Durant misses more than just the regular season? What if he doesn’t come back until mid-playoffs and then has to shake a few months of rust off? It’s not rocket science to note that the Warriors are significantly more beatable without Durant than they are with him. Suppose a team like the Rockets do beat the Warriors in the second round. This would be a seismic shift to the seemingly predestined narrative of this whole NBA season. Everything in this season has been about the rubber match between the Warriors and the Cavaliers. Anything that jeopardizes that ending is a dramatic change to how everything in the NBA is currently perceived.
A month ago, the Warriors winning the NBA Championship felt like a bit of an inevitability. The Cavs have LeBron James and as long as a team has LeBron, I’m never fully counting them out. But things were looking bleak for Cleveland. Now, in the blink of an eye, the Cavaliers have been completely remade. Not that long ago, guys like Kay Felder, DeAndre Liggins, and Jordan McRae were getting real minutes. Now, once Kevin Love and JR Smith return, the Cavs bench will consist of Deron Williams, Kyle Korver, Iman Shumpert, Derrick Williams, Richard Jefferson, Andrew Bogut, and Channing Frye. Whoa. That’s an actual NBA bench!
I was writing about the Cavaliers’ very real problem with bench depth back in early December already. When JR Smith first went out with the thumb injury, the bench was DeAndre Liggins, RJ, Chris Andersen, Mike Dunleavy, Kay Felder, Channing Frye, James Jones, Jordan McRae. Compare that to the list above. It’s ridiculous how much Cleveland GM David Griffin has overhauled the bench without giving up anything of value and not having any real assets to work with.
I think an argument can be made now that the Cavaliers are actually a deeper team than the Warriors. An injury to Durant only tips that scale even further. Yes, I will take another Cavaliers championship any way I can get it, but I really want the Cavs to beat the Warriors at full strength. Sure, a Championship last season might have been easier had the Thunder held on and beat the Warriors, but wasn’t it better breaking that Championship drought the hard way? I’m hoping Durant will be fine for the playoffs and the NBA storyline can get back on track as scheduled. But if Durant is out, or not at 100%, it might change an awful lot about what is going to play out over the next few months.
Look, all of this is making a lot of assumptions on the part of Cleveland as well. This is assuming JR Smith is able to get back to full speed in time for the playoffs. It’s assuming Kevin Love is able to reclaim the excellent form he was showing before his injury. It’s assuming other injuries don’t plague the Cavaliers before then. Let’s face it, the Cavaliers are not a model of health in recent years. It’s been a constant struggle and juggling act of various injuries.
Injuries have always been a major part of basketball, and in the sport where one player can have the most impact on a team, so too can one injury have the biggest impact on a team as well as the league as a whole. Make no mistake, an injury to Kevin Durant is major news. This is going to send out ripple effects throughout the NBA. Already the Warriors had to back off from signing career Cavs-killer Jose Calderon to instead sign Matt Barnes to fill in for Durant. Who knows how much this will change the sequence of events to play out. All I know is, ten years from now there’s a very real chance that we look back at this Durant injury as the thing that changed everything about the 2016-17 season.
Or maybe Durant is back in a few weeks and everything plays out as intended. You know that’s what the Warriors are hoping for, and honestly, I am too. Yes, I’m scared of the Cavaliers having to play a fully loaded Warriors team. But the best sports stories are the ones that come against the longest odds. And I’ll take on any team as long as I have LeBron James and Kyrie Irving on my team. Today we’ll find out more about the severity of Durant’s injury. I, for one, am hoping for the best for him.
- Unless your birthday is in February, I think we can all agree that February is definitely one of the worst months of the year. It’s my second-least favorite month, behind only August. Seriously, I hate August. [↩]
52 Comments
Oddly, if Durant is to miss significant time but able to play in the playoffs, then the biggest winner could well be the NBA ratings. More people rooting for more teams will believe their team has a chance to win the title.
Meanwhile, at the Four Letter world headquarters…
https://media.giphy.com/media/pWYReekqQW72U/giphy.gif
I hate when injuries occur to anyone. This makes the West very interesting.
As someone born on the Ides of August, I say to you:
http://gifrific.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/rose-gives-finger.gif
Draymond Green + Matt Barnes…
https://media.giphy.com/media/FUW0clfwjDXMY/giphy.gif
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Did you watch the video of the injury? Why was he just standing there watching everything. Unfortunate, but if he would have been actively going for the rebound, it could have been different. It was just a little odd to me because he was standing there not moving for about 2 seconds.
I think your August hate deserves some explanation? While August can be hot and humid, as someone who strongly prefers warm weather months to cold, it’s hard for me to “hate” one of the relatively few warm months we have.
As for Durant, while I don’t “root for injury,” I would be lying to say that I am not pleased at anything that improves the chances for my team to win.
https://twitter.com/anthonyVslater/status/836732558264139776
I loathe August but it is 100+ degrees here and I’m stuck outside in the worst part of the day coaching, so…
I always hated August because it was the month you went back to school.
Yes but you live in south Texas so . . . 🙂
Right, and certainly as a school-aged kid I was on board with that hate. But now that I am not faced with that impending doom, August is simply another month with long days and warm weather.
Correction: He was standing there for 4 seconds. I guess my point was if he was not standing there when the shot went up, well
It’s probably just perception, but it seems like season changing injuries completely reshaping the entire landscape of a league have become common place. And it sucks. If life were a video game, I’d turn off injuries.
Haha, fair rebuttal.
Andrew disagrees w/ me (long-standing debate between us), but I still firmly believe the Suns win the NBA title if Joe Johnson doesn’t have his face broken.
Whoa. That’s an actual NBA bench!
That’s an 8-seed in the East.
Huh. Hard to fault a guy for getting injured like that and it’s pointless trying to get in his head, but it does sort of look like his attention was somewhere else. That’s my professional internet comment guy opinion.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/GqQQVsF4BOE/hqdefault.jpg
then there’s the fact guys like Gortat can throw people to the ground without a whistle
The Doctor telling Durant this partial tear wont come back and wreck him:
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–GUEW5qro–/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_636/f8spf88nyxk1ytd7go55.gif
It was like a judo move.
August in NEO is lovely.
August here in Savannah, not so much.
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As much as they did when Love went out. ABC/ESPN doesn’t care who wins the Finals, as long as they get Round 3.
I liked it because it was the month you started preseason for the fall again.
“A month ago, the Warriors winning the NBA Championship felt like a bit of an inevitability”
I am going on the record as never, once even remotely thinking this. Houston and San Antonio are real threats to the Warriors in the West playoffs due to the Golden States serious lack of depth to handle a 7 game series.
The Cavs have owned the Warriors heads since June. That team went 73-9, hailed as maybe the most elite scoring group of players ever with the unanimous MVP and were so shaken they spent a month begging Durant to help them.
Browns talk!
Apparently the Patriots have decided they won’t be trading Garoppolo afterall.
TRANSLATION: Nobody is willing to meet their ridiculous trade demands.
More Browns talk!
Gordon getting ready to apply for reinstatement.
I wonder how long his paperwork will sit on King Goodell’s desk.
I keep thinking about what kind of damage they would do if they played together 5 seasons ago. Probably giving LeBron and D-Wade a few fits.
I can’t possibly be the only person who didn’t hate school.
August is often the hottest month, and I hate hot weather. Plus, by August, basketball is long over, football isn’t here yet, and baseball playoffs are still pretty far away. I always feel restless and hot in August, and it just isn’t pleasant. Plus, September is my favorite month (great weather as we get warm days with cool evenings, football is starting, and it’s my birthday month), so much of August I spend just wishing it were September.
Gortat did get called for a foul on that play. 11:03 of Q1
http://www.espn.com/nba/playbyplay?gameId=400900295
Sourcez: Browns trading Gordon to Patriots for Grabapablo(1).
Footnote 1: @Garry_Owen
That foul was flagrant. My view is that if you are not playing the ball as opposed to the man, you are subject to a flagrant. The intention throwdown is not a basketball play.
No, hate is a bad word for it. But I definitely loved the carefree-ness of summer and looked forward to it. I was one of those spoiled brats whose parents didn’t make them get a summer job – so from early June until marching band practice (geek alert!) started in August, I did N-O-T-H-I-N-G. It was glorious 🙂
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Former Browns talk:
Gordon isn’t the only one looking to get back into the NFL
hi RGB … they also re-signed Colquitt.
Still waiting for G_O…
until Josh fails another drug test, any minute now. A rare instance where I don’t blame Goodell. Josh has had a hilarious number of chances, interventions, programs and therapists, in college and the pros. His strep throat meds were the issue. Not knowing that his suspension included alcohol was the issue (suuure, no one told him, and Drew Rosenhaus didn’t remind him daily before losing his agent’s cut). Not letting him stay and get support in the building with team babysitters, that was the problem.
Can we move on? Or is this going to be the new Nate Thurmond retired Cavs jersey, a Cleveland sports longing that morphs over the years from pathetic into revised history? Damn Goodell. Damn that bad luck, after Josh – inexplicably! – tumbled into our laps in the second round of the supplemental. No, must have been the weight of our unreasonable expectations, or Johnny. Yeah, it was Johnny, that’s the ticket. What if.
JFF AND JOSH CAN WRECK THIS LEAGUE! I KNOWS IT!!
Hue Jackson intimated the Browns might well move on if/when Josh Gordon gets reinstated
I’m talking about the fans, not the team. I believe Josh will remain an eternal coulda/shoulda, a myth of Cleveland tough luck or that someone other than Josh screwed him up.
Well, yes. Nothing we can do there.
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“Yes, I will take another Cavaliers championship any way I can get it, but I really want the Cavs to beat the Warriors at full strength.”
I understand this, but I offer a big “meh”. The Warriors only beat the Cavs for a title when two of our top three were out, and the Cavs beat the BEST TEAM EVAR!!!! last season by twice winning on their floor when they could have hoisted the trophy at home.
While it would be nice to beat this Voltron version, I, for one, don’t think any caveats apply to winning again. If one Warriors fan says, “Yeah, but you beat us without KD!” the reply should always be, “True, but we DID beat you when you had the unanimous MVP, the best record of all time, and a 3-1 lead with two games at home.”
What come back is there from that?
The Warriors didn’t take their banner down when we didn’t have Love and Kyrie. A banner against a KD-less Dubs still means just as much.
Just. Win. Baby.
If we would have kept Vickers, Josh would have had a good mentor and kept on the straight and narrow.
If we kept Vickers, the Cavs parade would have been no biggie. We’d be building a statue to Michael Martinez. And “what is cancer” would be a $500 category Jeopardy answer.