So we all know that Kevin Durant suffered an Achilles injury during the NBA Playoffs
this year.
It’s old news.
And we’ve heard all kinds of predictions of what he could be and will be.
Optimists like Ryan Hollins, or should I say insane people like Ryan Hollins have said
that he will be even better.
Negative people on the other hand say that his All-Star days are as good as over.
Wishful people though think that he could return and be as good as Dominique Wilkins
was after his achilles injury.
So I was thinking, who am I?
With which opinion do I side with?
Am I a tweener who sits somewhere in the middle between all three?
Well.
Except the Ryan Hollins one cause I think there’s absolutely no chance in hell that
Kevin Durant will be better than he was.
Instead of guessing around I just thought I’d do a bit of a research and figure out
myself how good will Kevin Durant be?
Hey guys.
PRPLPRNCH here.
This will be a long one, but I think you’ll find this video interesting and I hope you’ll
like it, so stick around and enjoy.
So for starters, we have to know the total count of Achilles injuries that have happened.
How common it really is?
We won’t get into much details, but I found an interesting article on a website where
the author counted all the injuries that happened in the past NBA season.
I’ll drop a link of that down below so you can check it for yourself, but in short - Achilles
injuries are not as common as you would think.
Last year there were 12 achilles injuries, but as rare as they are, them Achilles injuries,
oh they’re devastating.
To dig a bit more I found an article from 2013 on Sage Journals, which I’ll also link
down below, where they collected a data of 18 NBA players who have suffered a ruptured
achilles tendon from 1988 to 2011 and what was their performance like after the injury.
If there even was one.
If you can believe the data in the article, 7 of 18 players never came back to the game.
11 players returned and played 1 season, and 8 of those players played more than 2 seasons.
So roughly more than a half of the players pretty much said goodbye to their career right
away.
That’s alarming.
And not only that.
The players were never the same.
Their PER dropped, their playing time dropped, performance dropped.
That’s not good news at all.
Obviously you can look back at that article and say, well, it was a while ago, the medicine
has evolved, it’s all better now, and sure, that’s true, but evolved in what way?
In a way that you can recover faster after the injury, or everything can be repaired
so good that you’ll be the same player you were before the injury?
Unfortunately in this case, I think it’s the former.
You can recover faster now, and the procedures are probably quicker and more effective, but
that doesn’t necessarily mean that it will bring better results.
But enough with all the medicine data, let’s take a look at some notable players from the
last, let’s say 15 years and how they did after coming back.
You know me guys.
I like NBA History, so when I say I’ll take a look at the last 15 years, I really meant
more like I’m gonna look at the last 50 years.
So the first notable player on this list is Elgin Baylor.
Baylor suffered an achilles injury on November 27th, 1970.
He was already 36 years old at the time, so he was definitely out of his prime.
Still.
We can make an example of him.
Before the injury, in 837 games, Elgin Baylor averaged 27.5 points and 13.6 rebounds.
Yes he already wasn’t the 30+ point scorer he was in his prime, but in the season before
achilles injury Baylor still averaged 24 points and 10.4 rebounds per game while playing 41
minutes on average.
Before the achilles injury Baylor had some nagging knee problems which I’m sure did
contribute to him injuring his achilles as well, but nonetheless, after the injury, Baylor
played only 9 more games for his NBA career and averaged only 11.8 points and 6.3 rebounds
in 26.6 minutes per game.
That’s quite a drop-off.
And it took Baylor almost 11 months before he was ready to play again.
Another older player who suffered this type of an injury was Patrick Ewing.
He was also 36 at the time on June 1st, 1999 when he suffered his achilles injury.
Before, he had played in 977 games and had stats of 23.2 points and 10.3 rebounds.
By that time Ewing was already slowing down and didn’t have healthy seasons, but his
stats after the injury suggest the drop-off.
9.6 points and 7 rebounds in 206 games.
You could say that he would have averaged those type of numbers nonetheless, but I’m
sure the achilles injury didn’t help.
It was a pretty quick recovery for Ewing as he returned just a little more than 6 months
after.
Maybe, the recovery time was too quick.
So now we go to the best example in Dominique Wilkins.
I think everyone, including me is hoping that Durant can recover the same or maybe even
better than Dominique.
So how did he recover?
First of all, it took Wilkins about 9 months to recover and secondly, stat-wise, he was
about the same.
In 762 games before the injury Wilkins averaged 26.2 points and 6.9 rebounds.
In 312 games after the injury Wilkins averaged 25.2 points and 6.8 rebounds.
So that’s really close and he’s the only example that has been the same.
Even though a lot of analysts and fellow basketball players have said that while the stats were
there, he didn’t have the same jumping ability and lift like he did before the injury.
Wilkins injured his achilles at age 32 which could still be considered his prime, similarly
to Durant’s situation.
And now let’s go to some examples that aren’t that good.
If you remember, there was this player LaPhonso Ellis, who was pretty good.
He was having a career year averaging almost 22 points and seven rebounds during the 1996-97
season for the Nuggets before suffering this devastating injury at only age 26.
He came back and played almost a full season next year, but in 76 games he played less
minutes, averaged only 14.3 points and 7.2 rebounds.
And then with each year he started to play less and less.
In the end, by age 32 he was a bench player and never averaged more than those 14.3 points
per game.
In 6 more seasons after the injury a once promising career turned into just 357 games,
121 starts and averages of 9.1 points per game.
And his shooting got worse.
He started to attempt less three-pointers and hit them at a pretty bad rate.
In his worst season connecting only on 14.3% of them.
Just for comparison, in the season before suffering injury he was attempting 4.7 three-pointers
and hitting them at a pretty good rate of 36.7%.
Let’s skip to the 2000s and there was this one really good player in Elton Brand.
Sometimes we forget how good was Elton Brand really.
He was very very good.
In the season before achilles injury Elton Brand averaged 20.5 points and 9.3 rebounds.
He also blocked 2.2 shots per game and then unfortunately in a 2007 offseason workout
he ruptured his achilles.
He practically missed the whole next season, appeared in only 8 games and averaged 17.6
points and 8 rebounds.
Then he had shoulder surgery the following season and just to be shorter, he never was
the same.
In his best season he averaged 15 points and 8.3 rebounds which is still ok, but not for
a guy who was on a path to possibly a hall of fame career.
And just to clarify how it impacted Elton Brand, he himself said:
“ I didn’t have the same explosiveness that I had.
I regained and then I relost 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.”
I also need to include Chauncey Billups here.
He was such a man amongst boys during his prime.
He suffered an achilles injury late into his career.
He was 35, not having his best season, but still averaged 15 points per game.
After the injury, Billups played only 41 more games and averaged 6.1 points per game.
A painful example is Kobe.
Kobe Bryant injured his achilles when he was 34 years old.
It took him more than a year and a half before he would come back and obviously he wasn’t
the same.
Pre-injury, in 1239 games Kobe held averages of 25 points and 5.3 rebounds.
And up until suffering the achilles injury Kobe was having a great year.
He was averaging 27.3 points 6 assists and 5.6 rebounds.
Then a lengthy rehab, just 6 games in the 2013-14 season before suffering a season ending
knee injury.
In those 6 games - 13.8 points and 6.3 assists.
In total, 107 games after the achilles injury and averages of 18.9 points and 4.4 rebounds.
He had lost his lift and just wasn’t the same.
This is for my Brazilian fans!
What about Anderson Varejao?
He’s not in the same breath as Kobe, but still, he was a quality player.
In 2012-2013 season Varejao averaged 14.1 points and 14.4 rebounds.
Yeah he was going through many injuries before the achilles, but the last one just killed
his career.
Varejao suffered an achilles injury at age 32 in December of 2014.
He had a lot of health issues besides achilles injury, but after it, his career was pretty
much over.
He played just 67 more games for his career, had a combined 588 minutes of game time and
averaged just 2 points and 2.4 rebounds in 8.3 minutes per games.
Achilles just totally ended his career.
And the list just goes on - Brandon Jennings.
Suffered his achilles injury at age 26 on January 2015.
And what is it with that damn January, a lot of players suffered an achilles injury in
January.
Anyway.
Before the injury Jennings averaged 15.4 points and 6.6 assists.
Quality numbers, right?
After injury, just 23 games in he was traded to Orlando, then was in New York, Washington,
Milwaukee.
Wherever he went, his skill was just not there anymore.
He never averaged more than 8.6 points for a season and never played more than 24.6 minutes
per game.
Just 143 games since 2015 and last season he wasn’t on any team.
So it’s pretty safe to say his NBA career is done as well.
In the same year, Wesley Matthews struck some bad luck.
In his contract year, he was having a career year.
15.9 points per game, great three point shooting.
Great defense.
And then in March of 2015 at age 28 he popped his achilles.
He’s been OK, he’s been playing close to the same minutes he played before the injury,
but his shooting has suffered.
He doesn’t have the same mobility on defense and last season he played for 3 teams and
in total averaged 12.2 points.
Another close to All-Star level player - Rudy Gay suffered his achilles injury at age 30.
He was having a good year in Sacramento in the 2016/17 season averaging 18.7 points and
6.3 rebounds.
After the injury he’s been a part of the San Antonio Spurs.
His minutes have been reduced, but he’s been able to carve out a nice role in San
Antonio and since has averaged 12.7 points and 6 rebounds, but still, not the same.
And this one just hurts, because he recently tore his ACL which marks his third major injury
in 19 months.
Demarcus Cousins.
At the time he was recognized by some as the best center in the league.
He had a great stint in Sacramento, then was traded to the New Orleans Pelicans and in
midst of a great year with the Pelicans in 2017/18 he ruptured his achilles.
In 48 games before the injury with the Pelicans, Cousins averaged 25.2 points and 12.9 rebounds.
And had 5.4 assists to go along with that.
Almost a full year of recovery and he was able to play just 30 games with the Warriors.
His minutes dropped down significantly from 36.2 with the Pelicans to just 25.7 with the
Warriors.
Just like his stats as with the Warriors last year he averaged 16.3 points and 8.2 rebounds.
He had some flashy moments, but didn’t have the lift, the speed, the elusiveness he once
had for a big man.
And just recently he tore his ACL which is just awful.
Awful.
What I want to tell you guys with all of this.
There is no perfect example of how Kevin Durant will look when he comes back.
All we know is that the players after an achilles injury are NEVER the same.
Even Dominique Wilkins, while his stats were on par with what he averaged before the injury,
his play wasn’t the same.
Maybe it wasn’t all about him recovering so great, it was just he adapted perfectly
to how he should play now after such an injury.
Another thing to think about is, what I noticed is that a lot of these players do heal their
achilles but suffer many other injuries after.
Maybe it’s because they’re afraid to injure their achilles again so they put more pressure
on other body parts or maybe it’s just the human body.
You injure something, it never fully heals and you just compensate it with something
else.
As you don’t have the same lift, your shot suffers as well, so it’s not like achilles
injury is only devastating for players who are high flyers or whatever.
The fact is that the outlook isn’t bright guys.
So I just wanted to keep you real.
It sucks.
This injury just plain sucks.
But I said I would give my prediction, so the best way to do it is to do some math between
all the players I mentioned here.
We’ll take the best examples, the good examples, the devastating examples as we don’t know
which one of these could apply to Kevin.
All we can do is guess.
So in the season before or during the season the injury occured, all these players combined
averaged: 239.1 points, 83.6 rebounds, 44 assists.
Divide all them numbers by 12 players and we have a combined player who before achilles
injury averaged around 20 points, 7 rebounds, 3.7 assists.
In the next season after the injury these players averaged 169.1 points, 66.3 rebounds,
29.7 assists which gives us a combined player who averaged only 14.1 points, 5.5 rebounds
and 2.5 assists.
So percentage wise - a player after an achilles injury scored about 30% less, grabbed 21%
less rebounds and passed the ball 32% less.
Those are alarming numbers in my mind.
But what’s even more alarming, are the shooting percentages.
Before the injuries our combined player shot 46% from the field, 35.5% from the three and
79.2% from the free throw line.
After the injuries those numbers dip to 42.8% from the field, 32.5% from the three and 78.9%
from the free throw line.
Those are notable drops.
Nevermind the fact that players shot and played much less after injuring their achilles.
If a player before the achilles injury on average shot the ball 15.6 times per game
then after the injury that number dropped to 11.7.
And minutes-wise a player before achilles injury on average played 34.5 minutes per
game while after the injury , only 27.2.
And keep in mind I was the good guy here.
For example I didn’t use Kobe’s atrocious numbers in the 6 games he played right after
coming back from achilles.
I gave him a benefit of a doubt by using his next season as an example.
So what we have here are the following stats: Player A is the one before achilles injury
and Player B is the one after.
Do you see the difference?
Notable drops everywhere.
Player A: 34.5 MPG, 15.6 FGA, 46% FG, 35.5% 3P, 79.2% FT
20 PPG, 7 RPG, 3.7 APG
Player B: 27.2 MPG, 11.7 FGA, 42.8% FG, 32.5% 3P, 78.9% FT
14.1 PPG, 5.5 RPG, 2.5 APG
So with all these Numbers in mind let’s try to predict Durant’s statline for when
he comes back.
Before the injury he was having a great year and a great playoff run.
For the regular season Durant averaged 34.6 minutes, 17.7 FGA, 52.1% FG, 35.3% 3P, 88.5%
FT, 26 points, 6.4 rebounds and 5.9 assists.
I think his minutes will go down, that will obviously impact his field goal attempts and
based on the specifics of this injury his field goal percentage will go down as well.
And I’m not even counting defense here guys.
The only thing that really is not worsened by this injury is the free throw percentage,
which kinda makes sense.
So my rough prediction for Kevin Durant Stats when he comes back are:
27.5 MPG, 15.2 FGA, 48.1% FG, 32.6% 3P, 88.4% FT
21.2 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 4.6 APG
I did not completely compare Durant to the averages I calculated cause Durant was definitely
not average, but we have to keep it real.
When he comes back he might be that casual 20 + points scorer on just OK percentages.
Not that hall of famer we used to see and love.
That’s it for this one guys.
It was a long one, but I hope you liked it.
What are your predictions for Durant when he comes back from his injury?
Do you think he will be better, the same, worse?
Much worse?
Please leave a comment below and share your thought with others.
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Thank you for everything.
This was PRPLPRNCH, and I’m out!