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Steve Kerr believes in basketball karma — that if you approach the game the right way, if you cultivate a good vibe in the locker room, if you play with joy, if you work through adversity, good things might be waiting for you on the other side.
This season must be a crisis of faith when it comes to basketball karma.
On Monday night in Dallas, Moses Moody planted his left foot to spring for a breakaway dunk. When he landed on the hardwood, his kneecap wasn’t where it’s supposed to be.
As his teammates and coaches looked distraught, the stretcher came out. As Moody was immobilized, Draymond Green hugged him. Moody had just come back from a 10-game absence due to a wrist sprain, returning as quickly as he could to help the Warriors build momentum toward the postseason. And he was the hero of the night, coming up big with the game-sealing steal.
A day later, Moody was diagnosed with a torn patellar tendon in the left knee, The Standard confirmed, ending his season and threatening his career. The rare injury is a rupture of the tendon connecting the kneecap to the shinbone, and few NBA players have successfully recovered from it. Moody could miss most, if not all, of next season too.
Moody, 23, is expected to undergo surgery this week.
Moody’s gruesome injury was the latest devastating blow to the Warriors this season. Their championship hopes were dashed when Jimmy Butler tore his ACL on Jan. 19. Steph Curry has missed two months with runner’s knee. Al Horford and Seth Curry both caught sciatica like it’s contagious.
The Warriors have been the fourth-most injured team in the league based on total cash sidelined, per Spotrac. (opens in new tab)
Last year’s playoffs were also ruined by injuries. But Butler’s tailbone and Curry’s hamstring could’ve been explained away by aging vets playing several weeks of playoff-level basketball and the heavy loads of that circumstance catching up to them.
What did Golden State do to deserve this season’s injury karma? The Warriors don’t have an electric substation conspiracy theory to blame. The basketball gods work in unforgiving and mysterious ways.
That the catastrophic injury happened to Moody, of all people, goes contrary to the spirit of whatever basketball karma might be. The wing has never complained about his role or playing time, competes nightly on the defensive end, has improved his game bit by bit, and is a precociously stoic presence in the locker room. He reads nonfiction to enrich his understanding of the world and improve his attention span. He writes poetry about the Black experience in America.
And it’s his career the basketball gods chose to put in jeopardy?
Patellar tendon tears are uncommon in the NBA, with just 13 occurring over a 15-year span, according to one study (opens in new tab). Caron Butler might be the biggest success story in recent memory, but even he was never the same.
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In 2018, Andre Roberson tore his patellar tendon as a 26-year-old wing for the Thunder. He missed the entire following season and played just 12 games the rest of his career. Jeremy Lin played only one season after tearing his patellar tendon. Kelenna Azubuike had the same injury at 26 in 2010, and his career was likewise over.
The instant Moody landed, Azubuike said, “That’s a patellar tendon” on the NBC Sports Bay Area broadcast. It was a scarily quick diagnosis from the broadcast table, one only Azubuike could make.
“That’s exactly what happened to me,” Azubuike said moments later.
Moody had become a vital part of the Warriors’ immediate and long-term plans, having established himself as by far their best perimeter defender and one of the most effective ball-screen navigators in the league. (opens in new tab)
He was in the middle of one of the best stretches of his career when he sprained his shooting wrist and was hitting a career-best 40.1% of his 3-pointers overall.
Moody left the court on a stretcher Monday in Dallas. | Source: Julio Cortez/Associated Press
As soon as he came back, the rug got pulled out from under him. Now he has a long and uncertain rehab ahead.
That’s just how this season has gone for the Warriors. Any glimpse of optimism has been shattered. They were on pace for 47 wins before Butler’s injury, having won 12 of 16. They still could’ve been in the mix for a playoff spot, because Curry was having an extraordinary season, but he went down a week and a half later.
It has been a nightmare season, one that can only get worse.
Moody’s injury, in a roundabout way, is the biggest argument against bringing back Curry. That type of freak accident can happen to anyone, senselessly. The two-time MVP wants to return and help the team push into the postseason. He’s uber-competitive and will always play if his body allows him to.
But to what end? The risk of Curry coming back and suffering an injury that affects next season is nonzero. And the best-case scenario is him returning, not missing a beat, and lifting what’s left of the Warriors to, ultimately, a first-round exit. Even that grand prize can happen only if the basketball deities permit it.
The Warriors are in 10th place, two full games behind the Clippers, in eighth. Only one 10-seed has ever advanced out of the Play-In Tournament. Nine-seeds are 3-7 all-time.
After all that has befallen the Warriors this year, you think they’re due for a heaping of history-bucking play-in luck? Most other teams in Golden State’s position would probably shut it down and try to play for ping-pong balls. Maybe they should too.
A quick exit in the Play-In Tournament would send the Warriors to the lottery, where they’d have slim odds at a top pick in a loaded draft.
Maybe that’s when their luck could turn. Maybe they’re due for some good karma.