The Suns haven’t put out any sort of formal press release updating the status of Kevin Durant‘s left ankle injury, but head coach Mike Budenholzer confirmed on Tuesday that the timeline reported by ESPN’s Shams Charania on Monday is accurate. Charania indicated that Durant has been diagnosed with a sprained ankle and will miss at least a week, meaning he’ll be sidelined for the team’s ongoing three-game road trip.
“As of now, we don’t expect him to join us on the trip,” Budenholzer acknowledged on Tuesday, per ESPN.
The Suns’ road trip began on Tuesday with a loss in Milwaukee. They’ll travel to Boston to face the Celtics on Friday before visiting the Knicks in New York on Sunday. After that, Phoenix would have just four games left in the season, but Budenholzer said the team remains optimistic that Durant will be able to return at some point during that final week.
“We’re certainly hopeful,” Budenholzer said. “I think these first few days will be important, but we’re hopeful he’ll be back before end of the season.”
The Suns’ willingness to bring back Durant at the end of the season figures to depend in large part on whether the team’s play-in hopes are still alive. After a fourth consecutive loss on Tuesday, Phoenix is now 35-41 and trails the No. 10 Kings (36-39) by a game and a half in the Western Conference standings.
We have more on Durant:
- Within a larger feature on the Suns’ disappointing season, Logan Murdock of The Ringer reports that a Durant trade this offseason isn’t necessarily a foregone conclusion. League sources tell Murdock that the star forward would be “open to a return,” even though most people around the NBA are expecting him to be on the move.
- Devin Booker, for one, is hopeful that this won’t be Durant’s last season in Phoenix. “Hell yeah, I want to play alongside him,” Booker told Murdock. “The team’s been in a tough situation. So, that’s the NBA today. I think K understands the business too, that when things aren’t going the right way, people are going to explore options. I don’t know how serious it actually was, but we moved past it. You see his morale, you see how he feels about the city.”
- According to Murdock, a sideline argument between Durant and Budenholzer during a game against the Lakers last month stemmed from Durant “pleading” with his coach to simplify certain offensive concepts for the benefit of the club’s younger players. The former MVP downplayed that brief confrontation in his post-game remarks.
He needs to play 3 more games to be All-NBA eligible. He’ll play those last 3 home games and skip the road finale, or he’ll skip one half of the home back-to-back.
*4 more games. He played one game of 16 minutes.
Suns are going to find out that there isn’t a huge market for KD. It will be pretty funny if the failed big three is still in place next season.