Justin Moore crumpled to the floor mid-dribble while trying to weave to the basket in the final minute of Villanova’s 2022 Elite Eight win over Houston. With searing pain suddenly coursing through his right leg, he not only feared the immediate but that he might miss the following week’s Final Four as well. Minutes later, tears streamed down his face as confetti fell from the ceiling and his joyous teammates celebrated their well-earned 50-44 victory.
The Wildcats were on their way to New Orleans and him to surgery, the victim of a ruptured right Achilles tendon.
Justin Moore’s teammates immediately ran over to console him after exiting the game in the final seconds 🙏#MarchMadness @NovaMBB pic.twitter.com/47QecgXppI
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 27, 2022
A few days later, Moore lay flat on his back in a hospital bed at Villanova’s student health center, still feeling the after-effects of anesthesia. As he began pondering the arduous road ahead, he received a text from his coach, Jay Wright, who let him know he’d be hearing from someone important very shortly. Before Moore could process Wright’s text, his phone lit up with an incoming FaceTime call.
Advertisement
“You’re going to come back better, stronger than ever,” the future Hall of Famer told Moore, speaking from the experience of having torn his own Achilles nearly three years earlier. “… These days, it’s not like the older days where you can’t come back from it.
“Take your time.”
Durant and Moore both grew up in Prince George’s County, Maryland, and as a kid Moore attended Durant’s camps. But now they share something besides proximity: both suffered the same devastating injury on nearly identical plays on nearly identical spots on the floor. Durant rupturing his in Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals between Golden State and Toronto, and Moore with the Wildcats in the hunt for their third Final Four in seven years.
Durant’s call put Moore in better spirits, an unofficial introduction to a small fraternity in which no one seeks membership, but one that bonds college and pro basketball players in grappling with an injury that once signaled the end of a career.
“He did a great job of encouraging me,” Moore said, his voice ringing with optimism. “Someone who’s been at that highest level, one of the best to do it, letting me know that I’m going to be okay.”
Later, reflecting on the call, the two-time world champion said he was “just letting (Moore) know I’m here for him.”
In 2020, when Durant was rehabbing his own Achilles, Dominique Wilkins, who famously returned in nine months from the same injury in 1992 as the same generational dunker he was prior, said he hoped Durant would become the modern face of the recovery. And he’s done just that, looking just as unstoppable after surgery as he was before it. Now he’s happy to help those who face the same long rehab he did.
“Durant has really taken hold of this and become kind of like the spokesperson for this injury,” Wilkins said. “And so we’re passing the torch. We’re a lot alike in how we share responsibility.”
When Durant saw his phone showing an incoming call from Wright last March, he had a feeling as to why the coach was reaching out. They had been together on Team USA for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Wright as an assistant coach, Durant as the star player. Moreover, Durant had watched the Villanova-Houston game at his penthouse in Manhattan, grimacing as he saw Moore hit the floor in real time.
Advertisement
“I knew it when he went down,” Durant told Wright. “It looked just like mine.”
Durant wanted Moore to know his career wasn’t over and the injury wouldn’t affect his NBA chances. After all, Durant, Klay Thompson, John Wall and others have successfully returned to the NBA from Achilles injuries.
“His career hasn’t even started yet,” Durant said of Moore. “I was damn near done with (mine). I could have retired at that point.
“Like, I can imagine what he’s going through from a mental standpoint, and how he’s thinking about the future. I just tried to ease his mind and let him know, ‘Hey, you’ll be back to full strength, and this is all really a mental thing you got to jump over.’”
Durant can clearly recall the moment he received confirmation he’d torn his Achilles: he had hobbled off the floor and now sat on a training table in the visiting locker room at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. A trainer told him they were going to squeeze his calf to see if his foot responded.
“So when they started grabbing and pressing on my calf and my foot didn’t move, I was like, ‘F—,’” Durant said. “I kind of knew it. So imagine (Moore) going to a locker room, just going through those emotions, trying to figure out what it all means.”
In June, Moore posted a video of himself on Instagram running on an antigravity treadmill just 12 weeks after surgery. Durant commented, “Let’s get it.” Two months later, Moore received clearance to start running and jumping, and he reached out to Durant to ask how long it took him to feel comfortable doing both exercises off the leg. Durant told him it had taken him roughly two weeks to feel at ease running and jumping and added it was more of a mental block than a physical one.
View this post on Instagram
At the end of November, eight months after the injury, Moore was cleared for live contact – and he texted Durant again. This time he wanted to know how Durant had felt pushing off the repaired tendon in a game-like setting and how long it took for him to play without thinking about the injury. It’s a feeling-out process, Durant responded, and suggested Moore would need to do a little bit of everything for the first time again, from defensive positions to routine drills, for it to become second nature once more.
Advertisement
For all the advice Durant has given to others, he eschewed getting an advisor during his own recovery. He could have talked to DeMarcus Cousins, his teammate for 30 games in Golden State, or Rudy Gay, both of whom tore their Achilles before him. Instead, he decided to go it alone.
“It was more by choice for me,” Durant said. “People can tell me how I’ll feel and what I’ll go through but I just wanted to experience it with no perspectives but just mine.”
Similar to Moore, Durant received an encouraging message of his own the night he tore his Achilles – a text from Kobe Bryant. The Black Mamba tore his Achilles in 2013 at age 34 and famously stayed in the game to shoot a pair of free throws before limping off the court.
“Don’t be a f—— crybaby,” Durant said of Bryant’s message. “It’s going to be all right. You’re going to come back and be who you are.”
Bryant stayed on Durant days afterward and discussed people to work with and certain physical therapies. But Durant said Bryant’s advice was just that – advice. Durant went on his own from there.
“When my mind was racing everywhere, it was good to hear from him,” Durant said. “Especially him going through it later in his career.”
Durant said there’s an unspoken bond amongst players who have torn their Achilles. It’s one of those ‘if you know, you know’ type of relationship. It’s why some of his responses to Moore have been more about the mental aspect, than the physical.
“Rehab, it’s an internal battle of who you are as an individual and a basketball player,” Durant said. “Because your whole life is affected by Achilles rehab and Achilles surgery.”
During the Nets’ preseason opener against the Sixers in October, Edmond Sumner returned to the bench after subbing out for the first time. He found Durant looking for him.
“How you feeling?” Durant asked.
A mere three-word inquiry, but it meant more than that to Sumner. He had torn his left Achilles in September 2021 while playing pickup at the Pacers’ facility. He was on a fast break, received a pass from T.J. McConnell, took one dribble to go up with the ball and suddenly hit the floor. He thought someone had bumped him, but no one was close enough to have done so. His mind immediately turned to multiple players, including Durant, who’d said an Achilles injury feels like getting kicked from behind.
Advertisement
“Instantly I knew; I heard that loud pop in my head,” said Sumner, who signed with the Nets in July. “So I just started connecting all the dots when I was on the ground. I instantly knew I tore my Achilles.”
Sumner said he sulked for the first 24 hours but eventually felt optimistic.
“I saw how Kevin Durant came back from it and he’s one of the best players in the world,” Sumner said. “I knew I was going to be all right. I knew how hard I work.”
Sumner said Durant’s recovery played a role in his choice of surgeon — Martin O’Malley, who also operated on Durant and is based in New York at the Hospital for Special Surgery.
When Giants wide receiver Sterling Shepard tore his Achilles in December 2021, he called Durant, who told him to go to O’Malley.
O’Malley said when he first started doing orthopedic surgery in the 1990s, doctors often told athletes who’d ruptured an Achilles that the injury was career-threatening. Now, it’s often only career-altering.
“When I started, they’d put people in casts all the way up to your thigh,” O’Malley explained. “Now, though, doctors know that when a tendon is immobilized, it doesn’t heal very well, and the calf muscle gets very atrophied.”
“Durant was probably in a cast for 48 hours, and we moved him to a removable thing and started working on his calf. We know that a little bit of motion and a little bit of weight-bearing makes the tendon stronger. That’s all good stuff. … Durant probably has the least change in his game before and after.”
When Durant first met Sumner in Brooklyn during the offseason, he realized they both have smaller calves on their once-injured legs as a result of muscular atrophy. The strength comes back, but size isn’t as much of a guarantee. Durant said when he talks with other players who’ve torn their Achilles, he’s often curious about their calves – hence why he doesn’t consider his role to be purely about giving advice.
Advertisement
“I’m wondering, like, all right is it just my calf that’s smaller than the other?” Durant said. “Do other guys feel that way too?”
Sumner, 27, has primarily served as the Nets’ backup point guard throughout the season, with a few starts mixed in, and has shown the explosiveness he had before the injury.
“Ed was already a phenomenal, elite athlete, and it feels like he hasn’t lost a step,” Durant said. “… He put in that work and continues to put in that work. But he’s a natural, I think. He might have took this Achilles rehab a little easier than some of us.”
In the fall of 2020, Klay Thompson was playing pickup basketball in Los Angeles when he went up for a shot he’d taken hundreds of times, a two-dribble pull-up. Suddenly, he was on the floor. Just a couple months removed from being cleared to play after tearing his left ACL, Thompson felt pain in his other leg.
Thompson smacked the air to imitate hitting the floor as he recounted the scene nearly two years later in the bowels of Madison Square Garden.
He soon learned he’d torn his right Achilles, his second significant leg injury in as many years. And then he got a call from Durant, his former teammate in Golden State, who was preparing for his own return to the court as a Net. “You’re going to be all right,” Durant told him.
Thompson said the first few months after tearing his Achilles were especially hard. He went from being on the brink of getting to play again to having basketball taken away for another year. He wondered if he’d be great again. The 32-year-old said his friends and family helped get him through that period, and Durant played a part, both directly and indirectly.
GO DEEPER
Thompson: Klay Thompson has a vulnerable moment after Warriors win
“To see him be an all-NBA guy and almost average damn near 30, it gave me a lot of confidence that if I put the work in, I would (get back to playing like) myself,” said Thompson, a four-time champion and five-time All-Star.
Like with Sumner, Durant has geared his conversations with Thompson toward their calves.
Advertisement
“We talked about the (rehab) process,” Durant said. “… Every time I’m talking to Klay, [I’m] like, ‘How’s your calf looking? Are you able to go up and do a toe raise yet?’ And that’s really when you start to come back, when you can put all your body weight on your toe and raise up.”
That doesn’t mean Thompson always took Durant’s advice. At least not immediately. When Thompson was preparing to make his long-awaited return in early 2022, Durant walked him through how he got his legs back under him with his shot selection after such a long layoff.
“I stuck in the midrange, then I started building up the 3-pointer,” Durant told Thompson. “I drove to the rim and tested myself early.’”
Thompson shot 33 percent from 3 in his first month back, ignoring Durant’s advice and taking the same shots he’d taken before the injuries. Looking back, he said Durant had the right idea.
“[Those shots] weren’t going in with the highest frequency, so I had to adjust and let my legs catch up,” Thompson said.
Thompson did take Durant’s advice to test his legs early on to get more comfortable landing on them. In his first game back, against the Cavaliers last January, his second basket was a posterizing dunk over two defenders. Though he would still struggle with shooting in the coming weeks, Thompson said landing on both injured legs off the dunk went a long way for him mentally.
“Catching a body my first game back,” Thompson said. “That’s all I needed.”
Before the Nets’ game against the Hawks on Dec. 9, as Durant took the floor for his pregame warmup, a familiar face was standing by the entrance to the court. It was Wilkins. The two greatest players to tear their Achilles and then successfully return made small talk before posing for a picture.
“When you hear about Achilles injuries in the NBA he’s always the first name that was brought up,” Durant said of Wilkins. “Somebody who bounced back pretty well. He was one of the first guys who came back from the injury and kept his production at the same that it was before. It was definitely a motivation and gave me confidence that I can do the same thing.”
Advertisement
Meanwhile, the torn Achilles club grows. Players have started to approach Sumner for advice, and he recently kept tabs on former teammate Brian Bowen throughout his rehab. Moore is back on the court, which means he could get questions as Sumner has. He said he knows he’ll have more of his own as he readjusts to playing. At least he knows where to go.
“I’m always here for him,” said Durant, who has designs on attending a Villanova game to support Moore after he returns, particularly if the Wildcats’ schedule can fit into his own. But even if the schedules don’t align, Durant is always a quick message away.
(Photo illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; photos: Ezra Shaw, Sarah Stier, Carmen Mandato)