With last Wednesday’s news that Klay Thompson ruptured his Achilles tendon during a workout, an injury that is the most feared and often most career-altering of any common malady moved front and center yet again. Not only will Thompson miss the entire season, likely spelling the official end of the Warriors’ dynasty, but Brooklyn’s hopes to vault into the league’s elite rests upon Kevin Durant’s return from his own Achilles tear, suffered in the 2019 NBA Finals, as he has not played since.
It is well established that players are often substantially reduced after an Achilles tear, if they can even return at all. I discussed some of the history with respect to Durant when examining where to place him in the NBA Player Tiers Project. But to understand why this injury is so devastating, and to get a better sense of the reasonable range of outcomes for Durant, Thompson and others, I spoke to Dr. Joshua Baxter of the University of…
