- 21 hours ago
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00:00Moses, again, I don't want to act like I know the guy, but we're around the Warriors and you can
00:06tell when everybody says the same thing about a person.
00:09Moses Moody is the nicest dude.
00:12He does seemingly absolutely everything the right way.
00:17And I'll just trumpet something my oldest son texted me right when this happened.
00:22He's like, when's it going to end?
00:25Like, what the hell's going on?
00:27And the answer's nothing.
00:29I already know the answer.
00:30It's a rhetorical question.
00:31I just, when the hell is this not going to be like this?
00:36This has been six months of an absolute constant flow of this kind of news.
00:44Catastrophic injuries, sports injuries.
00:46I don't want to overplay catastrophic, but if you think about just the Warriors part of it and you go
00:51back to the beginning of the dynasty,
00:53you do have to recognize that for a number of those championship years, they got a lot of health luck.
00:59And I know they were younger guys and younger people.
01:02I mean, Moses, this was a freak accident.
01:04I don't think he slipped on the wet floor, even though they were toweling it off all the time.
01:08I think he just planted and the knee went the wrong way.
01:11But back in the early championship runs, you didn't have a lot of injuries.
01:15You had a young core and they were able to stay healthy.
01:18Now, the finals against Toronto is a different story where you had boom, boom, one, two, both gone.
01:23That was bad luck.
01:24But in general, the Warriors have not been beset the way the Niners have.
01:29And then this year, and even in the last year, like Steph and the hammy and Jimmy and the tailbone,
01:34and then all the way through this year, it feels like just when you're starting to see things go pretty
01:40well.
01:40And Moses last night, that was fun watching him play that well.
01:43And then to have it go and end that way is just, it's just terrible.
01:47Yeah, absolutely brutal.
01:49But, yeah, he might have been, he was right up there with the best players on the floor last night.
01:53He was back.
01:54That gives everybody a little bit of a boost in terms of, like you're saying, looking forward and, okay, dream
02:00a little bit.
02:01You know, how's this going to go?
02:03You know, I joked yesterday that the Warriors might go 3-0 this week, and they might.
02:08They might.
02:08They got two bad tanking teams coming in the rest of the week.
02:12And it's like, that could have been a little bit of a buoy to see if they could get the
02:159 or get the 8.
02:16And you get a little bit more professional because Moody is now in the building.
02:21And then it literally happens on what was going to be the exclamation point for victory.
02:29And it also was a narrative buster because it's been very easy for all of us all year.
02:35Whenever the Warriors get the injuries, you're like, well, yeah, dummy, they're old.
02:40He's 23.
02:42Right.
02:42It's 20 freaking 3.
02:44This is like when Mike L. Williams had it happen with the Niners.
02:48These guys are rookie.
02:49So this just, this is not about age.
02:54And so there's no answer to the question that I ask.
02:58But I know that's what a lot of people are feeling right now, which is what the hell is going
03:03on?
03:05This is just, it's an unreal run of bum luck.
03:12Yeah.
03:12And this one, I think, is the one that feels maybe the bummiest.
03:16And I'm not going to just sit here and justify reasons for injuries.
03:20But Nick Bosa has had multiple torn ACLs.
03:23And so that happens.
03:24And you're not totally shocked.
03:26You're bummed.
03:26But that's happened before.
03:28Mike L. Williams, I don't know his knee history, but he's young.
03:31But he plays a sport where you're one big guy falling the wrong way away from you being out.
03:38Jimmy Butler is an older player.
03:39And so, you know, the older you get, you've gone through a lot.
03:42And the mileage on your body and whatnot.
03:44Steph's runner's knee, you put that to the side because that's more of a chronic ailment
03:49than it is a catastrophic injury.
03:51But then you get to this one.
03:52And this is almost like the Brock Purdy one, Mark, where, you know, he just gets hit.
03:57And, oh, your elbow.
03:59And now you need a complete, like, replacement.
04:02And you're going to be out for a long period of time.
04:03I thought of that injury yesterday.
04:05But you know, it's football and that happens.
04:06This was just a guy getting ready to jump and dunk and seal a game that he was the MVP
04:12of.
04:12Yeah.
04:13Yeah.
04:13And I, like, I don't know.
04:15I think these moments start to make you think about a little bit of a bigger picture, right?
04:19I mean, these are the moments, and this is part of why they're so hard.
04:23Because you can look at this from a different lens if you want.
04:27We don't know.
04:29Like, we're not friends with Moses Moody.
04:31We don't do barbecues together.
04:32And Moses has a $40 million contract in his hip pocket.
04:36So it's not like what you just said.
04:39It's not tragic, tragic, tragic.
04:42Nobody died.
04:43Nobody is not going to be able to take care of themselves.
04:47But I think what happens is we start, we just start thinking about the future, and we start thinking about
04:56how his life might have just changed.
05:00The course might have just been altered.
05:02Here's one thought that went through my mind.
05:04And I just think, in general, when we choose a career, there's sort of two routes we can go.
05:13And there's overlap here, and I don't think it's always defined, but there's kind of two routes we can go.
05:17We can go safe.
05:19We can go with a safe route.
05:20Or you can go for that job that doesn't feel like a job.
05:25You can go for that dream job.
05:28If you choose that, and Moses did, if you're able to do it, and you choose it, it inherently comes
05:36with major risk.
05:38It comes with major volatility.
05:40You're either in a volatile industry, performance-based industry.
05:45You can get fired at any time, get replaced at any time.
05:49And if you choose professional sports, there's this as well.
05:53So, like, this is, I can remember, do you remember the old tight end for the Niners, Jamie Williams?
05:59Yeah, of course, yep.
06:01He came and spoke at my high school one time, post-career.
06:05And we had a big assembly, and I'll never forget something he said.
06:11He said, we would walk around on the field in the huddle and whisper to each other before every play.
06:17Every play, like it's your last.
06:19You play every play, like it's your last.
06:21And then he kind of went on to say, because it might be.
06:25And so, I don't know if that's comforting or not when we watch this stuff, but that's part of the
06:32deal, man.
06:32Yep.
06:33It's part of the deal.
06:33And it's just, it's not an automatic that this is going to be the end of it, but it very
06:38well could be based on how severe it is.
06:41And I'm awaiting, you know, real certainty as to whether or not ligaments were also involved in this.
06:46So far, all we know, according to Sham Sharania, is that it's a torn patella tendon, which is what happens
06:51when your kneecap dislocates like that.
06:54Sometimes when your kneecap dislocates, you have other ligaments that go along with it, and that increases the time to
07:00return.
07:00But as you look at the history of players who returned to the association off this injury, 12 months is
07:06pretty much the earlier side of the timetable.
07:10And, you know, Sean Livingston, I was mentioning this during the crossover.
07:13He gets hurt with the Clippers.
07:15He sits a year.
07:16They release him.
07:17And then it's the Heat traded to Memphis, let go, signs with OKC's D-League at the time team, cut,
07:25Washington, Charlotte, traded, traded to Milwaukee, off to Houston.
07:30You get waved, back to Washington, plays a full year.
07:33He's a Cavalier.
07:34They cut him.
07:35He goes to Brooklyn.
07:36They cut him.
07:36And then the Warriors were there.
07:37Seven years between the injury and the Warriors.
07:41And so it may, hopefully for Moses, it won't be a seven-year journey.
07:45And Livingston was in his third year.
07:47Moses is in his fifth.
07:48I misspoke in the crossover, but both still very young.
07:51And, you know, Kalena's the other one where Kalena Azebuki, he got the same injury as Moses, and he sat
07:57a year, came back, played three games, and that was it.
07:59Yeah.
08:00And Oladipo, we mentioned, too, never was the same.
08:03It was never the same.
08:04So I'm not putting that out in the universe on Moses, but it is part of the data of this
08:10injury.
08:11It could be that he never returns to form.
08:15It could be that he returns to form, but it's a long time.
08:18It could be that he has to kind of find a new form, which is what I would argue Sean
08:22Livingston did.
08:23And as you just detailed, that was a seven-year journey.
08:26One thing we do know about Moses, here's what I don't worry about, the resolve.
08:33That we know.
08:35That we know.
08:36This is somebody who has taken, essentially, almost all of his five lottery years, and it took until last year
08:46before he was really able to get consistent run on the floor, open some eyes, gain some trust, and have
08:54somebody put a big contract in front of him.
08:56And so I know he has that.
08:59I know he has patience.
09:01I know he has perspective.
09:02I know he has an outlook.
09:04All of those things.
09:05So if he's able to be himself again, I have no doubt that he will.
09:10But I'm just wishing him the best today, because whatever this journey is, it's long.
09:16Yeah.
09:16And luckily for him, he's got Kalena and Sean Livingston, if they're willing to share their journey with him.
09:22And today's obviously not that day, but I'm just thinking about Kalena, where his third year with the Warriors, he
09:28averaged 14.4 a game.
09:30And he started more than half the games the following season on game number nine.
09:36He gets hurt, sits a year, goes to Dallas, plays three games, and it's over.
09:40So it just depends on how bad it is.
09:42And part of Kalena's story is that his first surgery was botched.
09:46So we had to go back and have a second surgery to fix the knee.
09:49And, you know, hopefully Moses is able to have it just be a clean patella tendon.
09:54And you can get that thing fixed and start the long, very long road back.
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