Warriors: Kevin Durant is almost ready to return

The Warriors — as promised after four weeks — have just updated Kevin Durant’s injury status.

Via Warriors PR:

Oh my, those words ring true like sweet gold in my ears.

“Kevin has made very good progress [...]. He has not experienced any setbacks to date and has progressed as well as could be expected.”

As the team stated, Durant will now be cleared for non-contact basketball drills, with the level of his physical involvement ramping up over the next week and half. Depending on how it goes, he could be cleared for full contact practice, and eventually full game action sometime before the end of the regular season.

“He will be re-evaluated again in the next 7-10 days.”

Obviously, as I wrote already, integrating him back into the offense as he tries to get back to in-game conditioning will be hard. But, I think it’ll be manageable, and I think the Warriors have perfectly executed their plan.

Here’s the rest of the regular season schedule, via a quick google search that I screenshoted:

So, breaking that down: What is 7-10 days from today? Seven days is April 5th, ten days is April 8th.

I really, really doubt they would unleash him on the road, so to speak. Even though they’d be playing the Suns, why rush? The team has been on a roll, they’ve been crushing people. Better to let him come along slowly. His rehab has been an exact duplicate of the best-case scenario provided when he first got hurt. What was it they said?

Oh, right here it is.

“He will be out of action indefinitely and will be re-evaluated in four (4) weeks. There is no timetable for his return, but it has not been ruled out that he could play again before the end of the regular season.”

#NailedIt

Well, here we are. My guess for Durant’s heralded return? Saturday, April 8th, at home against the Pelicans. The Pelicans have been struggling off and on since the DeMarcus Cousins trade. The Jazz are no pushovers, but then you have the lowly Lakers to close out the season. Whereas in a normal season — where the team isn’t hurtling towards 73 wins, and where everyone is already healthy — I bet you’d see Steve Kerr sit his regulars for those last three games to ensure they were rested for the playoff push.

But this is no regular year. Instead, I bet the starters play heavy minutes all through that three game home stretch to close out the season, as Kerr tries to rebuild the chemistry and tries to figure out his rotations heading into the great unknown of the playoffs.

Whew! Exciting times around here!