Kevin Durant undergoes successful surgery for Achilles injury

Game 5 of the 2019 NBA Finals will be remembered in league circles for a long time. The Golden State Warriors staved off elimination in stunning fashion with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson leading the way but, to put it plainly, the central story of the evening in Toronto was the injury suffered by Kevin Durant. Soon after the final buzzer, Warriors GM Bob Myers announced that Durant's injury was related to his Achilles and, ultimately, the former league MVP underwent successful surgery to address what is described as a ruptured Achilles tendon. 

Durant announced the surgery on his Instagram account and, in a moment of interesting contrast, did so shortly after Warriors representatives held back on providing further information to the assembled media. However, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr did not shy away from the fact that the team would make a different decision with Durant if given the opportunity to change the outcome. 

"Now, would we go back and do it over again? Damn right," Kerr told reporters. "But that's easy to say after the results. When we gathered all the information, our feeling was the worst thing that could happen would be a re-injury of the calf. That was the advice and the information that we had.... So the Achilles came as a complete shock. I don't know what else to add to that, other than had we known that this was a possibility, that this was even in the realm of possibility, there's no way we ever would have allowed Kevin to come back."

With surgery now complete, Durant faces a lengthy rehabilitation process and one that, as he notes on Instagram, he is ready to attack with vigor. Still, he is widely expected to miss, at a minimum, the majority of the 2019-20 season and Durant must navigate free agent decisions in the interim. The 30-year-old could choose to opt in to a lucrative player option for $31.5 million for the 2019-20 season but, with the uncertainty stemming from what is a serious injury, Durant could also "opt out" in search of long-term security, either with the Warriors or another NBA team. 

Durant has been at the center of many league-wide discussions for months, with most of the attention paid to Golden State's quest for a three-peat and his own free agency. Now, focus will be paid to what is hopefully a smooth recovery, but there are long-lasting implications to what transpired on Monday in Toronto.