Matt Barnes knows what it's like to suffer an injury as intricate as the one Kevin Durant is dealing with, and he also knows how the people surrounding him are handling it.
"This is a serious injury that I think they tried to downplay," the retired NBA veteran said on "Undisputed" on Friday.
"I've had a similar injury, it took me a month to get back. These take a while. ... I think KD's injury is more serious than they made it out to be. I think the players are planning on KD not being back." - @Matt_Barnes22 pic.twitter.com/HmfScrKxI3— UNDISPUTED (@undisputed) May 24, 2019
He said part of downplaying it is to keep the buzz off of KD in case there's a scenario where he misses the remainder of the playoffs.
Barnes also added he's had a similar injury in which it took a month to get back on the court. Mind you, Barnes, who was also dealing with a calf strain, said he had a small tear as well. ,
Barnes called it a "tricky injury," and something that does take a while to recover from -- so much so, he said he believes the players themselves are even preparing to be without Durant.
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KD exited Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals against the Rockets on May 9 with a strained right calf as the initial diagnosis.
[RELATED: Bob Myers explains KD tricky injury]
I spoke with Dr. Alexis Colvin, an orthopedic surgeon at The Mount Sinai Health System in New York City about Durant's injury. She hadn't looked at his MRI, but she did say, like Barnes, a lot of the time the rehabilitation process with these injuries you don't know until the impact is there.
Tricky indeed.
