Time flies in professional sports. Not long ago, this team would have been unbeatable: Stephen Curry, Victor Oladipo, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin and DeMarcus Cousins with John Wall as sixth man. Now, it’s a list of six players who have been all star and that they return in this 2020-21 season after hard times with injuries and much to prove. They are the six who, as he points out CBS, they return (in some cases practically from the grave) after serious physical mishaps and that they will try to regain their place in the NBA’s elite. Some seem to have an easier way than others to achieve it.
STEPHEN CURRY. With which there should be less doubts. His injury, a broken left hand after a fortuitous fall with Aron Baynes, has been by far the least serious, and the point guard actually played last season, but only five games. Now Curry comes back and does it now On his way to 33 years old and with the need to prove that he can continue to be one of the best players in the NBA and an MVP candidate. After a hiatus in the Bay last season after five grueling appearances in a row in the Finals, Curry leads the Warriors without Kevin Durant … and again without Klay Thompson, who will miss the second consecutive season ( knee first, then Achilles tendon). He has to lead a very renewed group, in which Draymond Green follows, in which Andrew Wiggins will have a new opportunity and to which new pieces arrive (Kelly Oubre, James Wiseman …), and that without Klay it would be difficult to be between the great aspirants of the West. But if Curry returns in a big way …
KEVIN DURANT. Also 32, Kevin Durant returns after sustaining one of the most serious injuries a basketball player can sustain, a fractured Achilles tendon. It was broken in Game 5 of the 2019 Finals, when the Warriors were trying to come back against the Raptors and Durant returned despite doubts about the state of the muscle injury that had kept him standing since the second-round tie against the Rockets. Already injured, Durant left the Warriors and went to the Nets with Kyrie Irving. And after a blank campaign, he now returns with the aim of taking his new team to the top of the East… and once again being one of the best players in the world. Both things go together: With the best version of Durant, the Nets (and just about anyone) automatically become one of the contenders for the ring. But it will be necessary to see if, hopefully, we can really have that optimal version of KD, one of the great players in history.
DEMARCUS COUSINS. One of the most complicated returns. Cousins is 30 years old and has been four times all star. In 2015 and 2016, in fact, he entered the Second Best Quintet in the NBA. But since then he has only been able to play 158 games between Regular Season and playoffs. and has suffered three tricky injuries: Achilles tendon, quadriceps and cruciate ligament of the knee. And he’s been through five teams, first from Kings to Pelicans, where he fractured his Achilles tendon when he was at an exceptional level and was approaching a big deal that never came. Then he has signed small contracts with the Warriors (where the quadriceps injury spoiled his return), the Lakers (he could not even make his debut due to the knee injury, in preseason) and now the Rockets, where he will seek to resemble the player he was. It remains to be seen if it has the mobility and explosiveness necessary to remain a top-notch interior. Talent is standard, but after that nightmare stretch of the last two years, it may not be enough …
BLAKE GRIFFIN. He is 31 years old and, in his case, hopes to show that he did not literally drop his left knee in his heroic 2018-19 season, in which he played 75 and led the Pistons almost by himself to the playoffs where, already greatly diminished, it could hardly contribute to the elimination very summary first round. He had averaged 24.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 5.4 assists with 36% on triples. Had been all star (for the sixth time) and had entered the Third Quintet of the season. But last year he stayed in 18 games, in which he was a shadow of himself before going under the knife again, on January 7. Griffin will earn 36.8 million this season and has a player option of 38.9 for 2021-22. Many eyes will be on him: With the Pistons rebuilding, if he’s at a good level he can be tempting on the market for a title contender. If the knee does not respond … The last Griffin, that of the 2018-19 season, was a player in full maturity, better than ever as a leader, with an increasingly reliable shot and more range as a playmaker. A great power forward who we do not know if we will see at that level again.
VICTOR OLADIPO. 28 years … and many doubts due to a treacherous quadriceps injury. After being No. 2 in the draft in 2013, he played at a poor level for the Orlando Magic and Oklahoma City Thunder before resurrecting for the Pacers, where he came in the Paul George trade to OKC. In the 2017-18 season he averaged more than 23 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals per game. It was all star (also in 2019), Most Improved Player and entered the Third Quintet and the Best Defensive Quintet. A star was born … but one that broke the quadriceps tendon in his right leg on January 23, 2019, a serious and very delicate injury that did not allow him to play again until January 29, 2020, 371 days later . The stoppage due to the pandemic made him resign, from the outset, to the bubble. But he changed his mind … and maybe he shouldn’t have. In Florida he proved far from his best and played a horrible tie against the Heat (4-0 for Spoelstra). He has left this season on his contract (21 million). And neither the Pacers have acceded to their economic claims to expand nor have there been any real suitors (there was talk of the Heat themselves) who actually bid to get him via trade. It all depends, from now on, on how that leg responds and if it can go back to being the total player of the 2017-18 season, which is starting to get far …
JOHN WALL. With 30 years, Wall arrives (like Cousins, with whom he played in Kentucky) to a Rockets in full renovation and with the Harden case still hot. In Texas, he will not only step on an NBA court for the first time since December 26, 2018, almost two years ago, but he will start and try to create positive chemistry with him. off center Harden … if there is not one last before transfer bomb. At the time a supersonic base and of exceptional level (all star five times in a row, 2014-18), Wall entered the NBA’s Third Quintet in 2017, after an excellent season: 23.1 points, 4.2 rebounds and 10.7 assists. On July 26, after a spectacular course ended in which the capital’s team fell in seven second-round games from the East against the Celtics and seemed on the ramp to take off, Wall signed an extension of 170 million for four years. Now that contract is a tremendous slab, perhaps the worst in the NBA: 132 million remain to be collected, with player option of 47.3 million in the 2022-23 season. Especially ugly if he doesn’t regain his physical explosiveness and can’t get anywhere near the great point guard he was before his knee injuries and, eventually, a fractured Achilles tendon.
