Brooklyn Nets fans have been optimistic about Kevin Durant's impending return from a devastating right Achilles tendon injury. Unlike other right-handed players who have suffered the injury, Durant's injury is not to the left Achilles, but the right — which brought speculation of a better chance for a successful return.
The fan cited Dominique Wilkins, a right-handed athletic superstar who tore his right Achilles and performed well post-surgery. The fan also cited examples of other right-handed players who tore their left Achilles and didn't share that same fate — the likes of Kobe Bryant, Elton Brand, and Wes Matthews.
Though there is more than hand and foot dexterity to determine whether Durant will make a successful return, as a myriad of variables ranging from mental state, confidence, aggression, rehabilitation intensity, timing, and perhaps the wildest of all cards — luck.
“Once I started playing, mentally for me it was tough for me to jump off my left foot again,” Brand, a right-handed player who suffered an injury to his left Achilles, told InsideSoCal.com. “I didn't have the same explosiveness that I had. I regained and then I re-lost it. I didn't have it. I had to change my game a little bit where I jumped off two feet and I was a little bit slower.”
So how does that experience resonate with surgeons?
“It absolutely does,” Dr. Ettore Vulcano, a foot and ankle surgeon at Mount Sinai West, told SNY's Ian Begley. “I don't think it's that the recovery is slower or quicker. I think it's really more of the amount of stress you're putting on that tendon.”
Dr. J. Turner Vosseller, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia piggy-backed off that thought:
“That's actually pretty interesting to think about. I suspect because that's the more dominant foot when they play, that it's probably true… But I'm not aware of any study or anything that's objectively looked at that.”
Others surgeons like Dr. Kevin Stone were unconvinced.
“We haven't seen any data (to support it),” said Stone, an orthopedic surgeon at The Stone Clinic and the chairman of the Stone Research Foundation.
Dr. Steven Weinfeld, Chief of Foot and Ankle Surgery at Mount Sinai Health System, argued it would be tough to see Durant come back this upcoming 2019-20 season, noting it won't only be the Achilles that will need to fully recover, but that his entire lower body will need to harmonize before making a return.
Even if he possesses slightly better odds to return close to the same player he was, Durant will need to ensure he's not overcompensating for his Achilles, but rather making small strides to regain his comfort and confidence after a major procedure.
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