During last nights highly emotional Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals, the Golden State Warriors managed to save themselves from elimination, but lost Kevin Durant to a possible torn Achilles. During the moment that Durant went down, one of his former teammates and current Raptor Serge Ibaka thought he went down for a much more innocuous reason.
According to The Athletic’s Michael Lee, Ibaka initially thought that Durant had simply lost his shoe when he went down. “He was down. I thought he lost – I know Kevin, normally, he always lost his shoes,” Ibaka said. “I thought his shoes were out or something like that, or he slipped, then they fouled me and I turned back, and he’s still down. That’s when I knew, OK, that’s bad.”
Ibaka went on to say that he feels devastated for Durant, especially due to the fact that the two of them are so close, and how much he loves to play basketball. “It’s tough, man. That boy loves to play. He loves the game,” Ibaka said. “He tried to play. It’s tough, but now, it’s going to be even more tough for him. It’s tough to see a player go down that. Even though we are enemy on the court, basketball is just a game, and we not really enemies where we try to hurt each other. We’re just enemy playing the game.”
Ibaka added that Durant is like a “brother” to him, and that he wouldn’t wish this injury on anyone. “Kevin is like a brother,” Ibaka said. “I wouldn’t like to wish something bad to happen to him like that. I know he loves the game. He love to hoop, that’s one thing for sure.”
At the end of the day, it’ll be a long road to recovery for Durant, and one that will test him physically and mentally. As the rest of the league continues to voice their support for the superstar, we can only hope that he ends up making a full recovery from this tough injury.
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