Well, this is garbage. Not as garbage as it could have been, but still garbage. Kevin Durant won’t play for the Golden State Warriors for a month -- possibly more -- thanks to a Grade 2 MCL sprain and bone bruise suffered when Zaza Pachulia fell into his leg on Tuesday.
Durant isn’t putting up quite the same per-game numbers as his former teammates James Harden and Russell Westbrook, but he’s having an MVP-caliber season in his own right. He’s by far the most efficient high-scoring player in the league, with a career-high 65.1 percent true shooting percentage that is largely a product of him making 54.7 percent of his long 2s, the most difficult shot in the game. While everything Durant does looks easy, he has been working like crazy to help the Warriors on both ends. His versatility, rim protection and defensive rebounding are a big part of why Golden State has the second-best defense in the league, a ranking that will be hard to sustain without him.
The Warriors will miss Durant, obviously. But will this set them back so much that they will fall in the standings, fail to become the best version of themselves and cost the world a chance to see something truly special in the NBA Finals? Let’s have a look at the possibilities.
The case for the Warriors getting through it
They have three other All-Stars. The core of last year’s 73-win team is still intact, albeit with a different bruising center and a different Barnes (Matt) on the wing. When Golden State signed Durant, it seemed like everybody was acting like it would be almost impervious to injuries -- one line of thinking was that coach Steve Kerr should rest his stars like no one has ever done before, letting Durant be the No. 1 option some nights and Stephen Curry other nights. There is no other team in the league with the luxury of losing one former MVP and telling another former MVP to be more aggressive.
The Warriors’ playbook won’t change, and their offense should still function smoothly. Curry and Draymond Green can run more pick-and-rolls, and reserves Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston will do more playmaking. Kerr’s system will take care of a lot of the potential issues offensively, and it won’t surprise anybody if Curry immediately starts putting up best-player-on-the-planet numbers and Golden State’s offensive rating stays at the top of the league for the rest of the year. This is the benefit of building your roster around a bunch of guys who can dribble, pass and shoot.
The 36-year-old Matt Barnes shot 38.4 percent and 32.7 percent from 3-point range for the Sacramento Kings this season, but he’s as good a fill-in as the Warriors could have hoped to find on the free agent market. I’d be shocked if he couldn’t bump those percentages up significantly in Golden State, given how many open looks he’ll get. Barnes’ intense, physical style will fit perfectly, and the main reason for signing him was that he can defend power forwards. The Death Lineup is still alive.
In the short-term, the Warriors might have problems, but the big picture is essentially the same. They need to be at their best in May and June; Durant is supposed to come back in April. The injury makes the road tougher, but as long as they get where they’re trying to go, it is not necessarily a big deal.
The case for the Warriors getting derailed
I’m not sure people realize how much Durant does for Golden State. It’s not just the scoring, though you can expect some sluggish possessions with the second unit now. Before he arrived, Curry and Green were clearly the Warriors’ two most important players. You can think of Durant as a 7-foot fusion of the two of them.
One easy way to represent this: Last year, Golden State was outscored by 3.7 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the bench and 7 points per 100 possessions with Green on the bench. This year, the Warriors have outscored opponents by 2.7 points per 100 possessions with Curry on the bench and 6.9 points per 100 possessions with Green on the bench. Durant stabilizes the team on both ends -- with him sidelined, it’s going to put more pressure on the starting five to dominate.
Durant might be the best all-around offensive player on the planet, but I’m more worried about what this means for Golden State defensively. Coming into the season, how the team would deal with the loss of Andrew Bogut’s rim protection was an open question. The answer, essentially, was Durant being disruptive as hell and doubling up Green’s act when it comes to staying in front of smaller players and battling stronger ones. He might deserve to make the All-Defensive team for the first time in his career. As tough as Barnes may be, the veteran can’t duplicate Durant’s ability to block shots and start fast breaks.
While the Warriors have integrated Durant fairly seamlessly, they have struggled at times with fourth-quarter execution. They hoped to fix this before the playoffs, and now they’re going to have to just try to figure it out on the fly when Durant returns. Few people will feel sorry for Golden State, especially with the Cleveland Cavaliers dealing with injuries to J.R. Smith and Kevin Love, but it could be tough for the team to regain its chemistry if Durant returns with just a few games left in the regular season. And there’s no guarantee he will even be back that early.
The forecast
Despite Durant’s injury, Golden State should still be the favorite to finish with the league’s best record and win the title. There is too much talent here for that not to be the case -- this was the best regular-season team in NBA history before he showed up. The most significant variable here is not Curry’s production, how the bench responds or even when Durant is medically cleared to return. It’s the kind of player he will be when he does.
As long as Durant is fully healed and comfortable when he rejoins the Warriors, they will be on track to avenge last year’s loss in the Finals. Knee injuries can be tricky, though, and it’s impossible to know how long it will take for him to be himself again. All Golden State can do is try to hang onto the No. 1 seed and hope for the best.
