Path to the throne: Durant's injury is the tipping point contenders wait for
There's surely relief among Golden State Warriors fans after Kevin Durant merely suffered a strained right calf in Wednesday's Game 5 victory over the Houston Rockets, especially given immediate assumptions that the two-time Finals MVP might have went down with a season-ending Achilles injury.
Beyond the initial overreactions, however, is relief really a reasonable feeling right now?
Durant is arguably the best player left standing in the postseason and we're talking about him being sidelined from a closeout game on the road in Houston, and from a potential Game 7 back at Oracle Arena. Nothing about that sounds comforting for a Warriors team that has more closely resembled a teetering champion trying to avoid a knockout punch than the juggernaut we've come to expect.
Sure, most teams would kill to fall back on the otherworldly shooting of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, and the ferocious, two-way brilliance of Draymond Green. There is reason to believe that trio, plus the re-emergence of Andre Iguodala, might be better suited to exploit the Rockets.
Even so, it's a simple question, no matter what level of talent you're starting with: Would you rather have Durant on the court or not? The answer is obvious, and never more so than during this postseason, in which Durant is averaging 34.2 points on 51-42-90 shooting.
This reality - that the two-time defending champions are as vulnerable as they've ever been - brings me to this realization: Even in the star-driven NBA, even in the age of the seemingly inevitable Warriors, Durant limping off the court on Wednesday is a reminder of exactly why perennial playoff teams and fringe contenders should always go for it. Every year.
I'm not talking about mediocre teams chasing a couple of home playoff games at the expense of crucial lottery positioning, or a team in need of an obvious rebuild making a shortsighted move just to jump into a meaningless playoff race. I'm talking about teams like the Toronto Raptors, Portland Trail Blazers, and Philadelphia 76ers, recently eliminated teams like the Boston Celtics, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Utah Jazz, and of course, the Warriors' current opponents: the Houston Rockets.
If you have the type of team good enough to contend for a top-four seed every year, to put itself in position to be playing in May, the quirks of fate like Durant's injury are the reason you take your shot rather than tearing it down a year or two too early.
This is why you continue to push the boulder up the mountain every spring. This is why, like Toronto and Philadelphia, for example, you pounce on the opportunity to acquire stars like Kawhi Leonard and Jimmy Butler, when less ambitious franchises would have decided the trade-off doesn't move the needle enough to offset the risk.
No one wishes injury upon even their fiercest rivals, but keep yourself in contention long enough, and your team might still be hanging around when DeMarcus Cousins blows his quad out chasing down a loose ball, when Curry dislocates his finger and loses his shooting touch for a couple of weeks, or when Durant, with a perplexed look on his face, wonders what just jumped up and bit him in the calf.
These franchises, and the devoted fans who live and die with every moment, resemble hopeless romantics most of the time, but they do it, year in and year out, for the opportunity the Warriors' current vulnerability presents.
Of course, you actually have to seize the opportunity when it arises.
Houston has the first crack at capitalizing on it. The Rockets couldn't do it down the stretch of Game 5, and if they can't in Game 6 or 7, it likely will haunt this veteran group forever. This is the precise moment they and every other secondary contender need to exploit when it arrives.