Yes, though you may revive Anti's restless spirit.
Unfortunately I am in no position to write a tl,dr like Anti. so have this instead.
Kevin Durant is a near 7-footer with a history of foot problems. This is something that should terrify Thunder fans, and also anyone who loves the game of basketball and watching all-time great talents.
By now you're familiar with the history. Durant missed the first 17 games of last season due to a Jones fracture in his right foot. He returned to the court on Dec. 2, only to sprain his right ankle two weeks later. He made it back onto the floor on Dec. 31, then sprained his big left toe in January and played his final game of the season on Feb. 19 after being forced to undergo another minor surgery to reduce pain in his right foot.
Durant played a total of 27 games last season. He's still just 27 years old. But any time a man of his size misses a significant amount of time due to a foot injuries, you can't help but worry and think about all the great careers (like Bill Walton's) that have been derailed by similar problems
Those are the caveats that need to be added to the beginning of every Kevin Durant column -- at least until he makes it through a season healthy. But if the foot injuries are truly a thing of the past and just the result of one lingering issue that only needed a year to heal, well, it looks like KD could be in store for a monster year.
It's always dangerous, and silly, to make predictions based off of preseason results, but there are some situations where looking at how a team, or player, is faring in exhibition games can be worthwhile. One such time is when a player is coming off injury.
Sunday against the Nuggets, Durant once again looked like the scoring machine who beat out LeBron James for the 2014 NBA MVP. He finished 9-of-14 from the field and had 23 points, six rebounds and four assists.
The silky jumper was on full display, but that shouldn't come as a surprise. More encouraging were the ways he created baskets -- for himself and for his teammates. He used the dribble to beat bigger defenders, his body and a Dirk Nowitzki-style fadeaway to score on smaller ones. He used screens to get into the paint and ball movement to find cutters at the rim.
It's the latter that should have Thunder fans giddy. Scott Brooks was many things as a head coach and had many strengths. Designing an offense was not one of them. His Thunder managed to put up good scoring numbers -- they scored 108.1 points per 100 possessions in 2013-14, the last season where Durant and Russell Westbrook where both healthy for the majority of the season, good for seventh-best in the NBA -- but that proficiency was largely the result of him almost always having the two best players on the floor.
Every now and then Brooks would come up with something creative -- Exhibit A -- but he seemed to prefer having his stars create for themselves. It was not uncommon during fourth quarters of close games to see Westbrook pound the ball at the top of the key for 10 seconds, while Durant attempted to get into position on the left wing all the way out by the three-point line. Last year, the Thunder threw the fourth-fewest passes in the league, and the year before they were fifth-worst, per NBA.com.
They were able to get away with this strategy during the regular season, but it was also often the team's undoing in the playoffs. That great offensive rating in 2014 -- it fell to 100.7 in the Western Conference Finals, where the Spurs sent the Thunder home in six games.
We don't yet know much about Billy Donovan, the man the Thunder replaced Brooks with, or at least what he'll look like as an NBA coach. But he does seem intent on making a few tweaks to the team he inherited. For one, he appears to be interested in staggering Durant and Westbrook's minutes. Perhaps more importantly, though, all indications are that he plans on designing an offense built around ball and player movement.
Not allowing opponents to slowly load up one side of the floor should only make life easier for Kevin Durant, something that a player averaging 27.3 points and shooting 48 percent for his career needs. The Donovan experiment could fail, and Durant's weak right foot could prove to be something that derails his career.
However, if Donovan is able to move the offense into the 21st century, and if Durant is able to stay healthy, this all-important season in Oklahoma City could end with Durant being handed yet another MVP award, and maybe him handing the Thunder a signed long-term contract in return.
