Warriors owner Joe Lacob provided a key update Friday on the health status of coach Steve Kerr, who visited Duke's medical center to get specialized back treatment. According to Lacob, Kerr had his spine drained to hopefully alleviate some of the back issues he's been having. Lacob goes into the details a little on what Kerr is dealing with and why this is happening, but the key piece of information is Kerr's recovery time.
Lacob believes that, if everything goes well this time, the issues Kerr is dealing with from a back surgery he had two years ago should have him on the court "sooner rather than later," which would be a major swing of good news for Kerr. Here's the full section on Kerr:
"It's very unfortunate what's happening here," Lacob said. "He had a back surgery. Relatively common procedure almost two years ago now. And had a what is really a relatively uncommon thing happen. Which is the dura around the spinal cord got nicked. And you wind up having a spinal cord leak. And ultimately headaches and other symptoms. Bad headaches. Migraines. Unfortunately usually they patch that with a blood patch and it's over. Either in a week or month. Whatever. And in his case for whatever reason they just haven't been able to solve that problem. Hopefully it was solved yesterday he had another procedure. It's gone on for nearly two years. Very unusual I believe. I have a medical background so I know a little bit about this. I've never really heard of many people having this problem for this long. We feel really bad for him, the players, everybody understands it. We just have to be in his court here and support whatever it takes for him to get back and I'm sure they will eventually solve it. Hopefully sooner rather than later and hopefully we'll have him coaching on the court sooner rather than later."
Surgery is terrible, as are back injuries. The issues Kerr has been dealing with for two years now is something nobody should have to go through. Hopefully the spinal drain Kerr had Friday will cease the issues for him and the procedure he had will leave him healthier than ever.
Lacob did sound confident that Kerr would return sooner than later, but did not guarantee a postseason return. He simply stated that if all goes well Kerr could come back. Hopefully Kerr doesn't rush it and puts health as his top priority.
