When the Golden State Warriors travel to take on the Oklahoma City Thunder on Thanksgiving Eve, they may do so without Kevin Durant.
The 2017 NBA Finals MVP missed the Warriors’ game against the Brooklyn Nets on Sunday with what the team deemed a sprained ankle. Though many just assumed he was grabbing a brief respite on the second night of a back-to-back, he told ESPN.com’s Chris Haynes the injury could be serious enough to keep him from suiting up Wednesday night in his old backyard:
Kevin Durant (ankle sprain) tells ESPN “I’m not sure” if he’ll be able to go Wednesday at OKC: “I’m just going to take it day by day and see how it progresses.”
Posturing? Maybe. After all, players and teams don’t really want to advertise that they’re giving marquee names an impromptu rest night while on the road this year. The Warriors and Nets weren’t on national television, but the new protocols are still murky, and it wouldn’t look great, from the league’s perspective, if Golden State benched Durant during his only visit to Brooklyn this season just because.
The bet here is that he plays. Durant doesn’t seem like he’ll want to miss another chance to one-up his former squad, especially now that it looks so different. Carmelo Anthony, Paul George and Russell Westbrook are still trying to figure out how to work together, but they have collectively been billed as one of the biggest threats in the Western Conference. The odds of Durant sitting out their first matchup of the season are slim, if nonexistent.
The Warriors, of course, will be fine either way. They’re better off with Durant but they’re still outscoring opponents by seven points per 100 possessions when he’s not in the game, according to NBa.com—a net rating that would rank fifth in the league overall, just in front of the, you guessed it, Oklahoma City Thunder.
