SAN FRANCISCO – Kevon Looney is all the things you’d want in a son or brother or friend. And definitely in a teammate. Earnest. Smart. Likable. With a practically perfect symmetry between self-assurance and humility.
He also possesses superior basketball skills that are being betrayed by his body.
“He should be in the prime of his life,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr told NBC Sports Bay Area on Saturday night.
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That’s the cruelty of Loon’s plight. He turned 24 last month. He and the Warriors have spent the last six months hoping and waiting and probably praying for his health to stabilize long enough to more consistently exploit his gifts. And all they’ve gotten in return is disappointment.
The latest setback came Saturday, when the Warriors, through sports medicine director Dr. Rick Celebrini, announced that Looney, who has missed the last four games with soreness in his left hip, will be sidelined for at least eight more over the next three weeks.
“It’s disappointing,” Kerr said in his pregame news conference. “Most disappointed for Loon because he’s found some momentum and played well and finally been able to put some games together. It’s a setback for him, but Rick feels this is the best course of action going forward.”
We emphasize “at least” because it has been that kind of season for Looney. Best-case keeps dissolving into uncertainty. Despite the best efforts of Celebrini and his staff, every sign of optimism to form around Loon has been destroyed by the agonizing truth.
Golden State Warriors
Looney was diagnosed last October with neuropathy, a chronic condition without a remedy. It can only be managed, mostly through therapeutic treatment. It’s logical to believe it is related to Looney undergoing surgery on his right hip in August 2015 – two months after he was drafted in the first round – and on his left hip in April 2016.
When a young player is sidelined so often with a recurring issue without an actual cure, a specter of doubt begins to form. That’s where this has gone. Though it’s too soon to conclude Looney never again will be the player he was the two previous seasons, it would be heedless to dismiss the possibility of a tragic trajectory similar to a Brandon Roy or a Bobby Hurley.
After playing only five games as a rookie, Looney appeared in 53 in 2016-17, 66 in 2017-18 and 80 in 2018-19. Thinking he was out of danger, the Warriors were thrilled and last July rewarded him with a two-year contract, plus player-option in Year 3, worth $14.5 million.
Looney missed training camp and preseason with what the Warriors described as a “hamstring tweak.” After recovering to play only 10 minutes on opening night, Looney’s neuropathic condition was diagnosed, sending him to the sideline for five weeks. He missed six of 15 games in December and all 14 games in January before returning to play in 10 of 11 games in February.
And now, having played 20 of 64 games this season, Looney likely will miss all of March.
“We’re going to, with Rick, see if we can get him right in the next three weeks,” Kerr, with a heavy sigh, told NBC Sports Bay Area, “so he can play the last two weeks of the season and get some momentum going into the offseason.
“But the reality is they haven’t been able to figure out what it is.”
The Warriors miss the tangibles Looney typically provides when he’s fully healthy, when sound fundamentals, 6-foot-9 height and cartoonish 7-4 wingspan allow him to reliably defend all five positions. Opponents that targeted Looney often found their lunch taken.
Looney’s teammates took to floor in crucial matchups, postseason games, trusting him to be in the right place, at the right time, because he almost always was.
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Looney’s character and will are too strong to presume he is finished. He has turned to various methods, most notably a dramatic change in diet, to maintain his NBA career. After all of that, he still is in a place not remotely close to certainty.
This was to be the season in which Looney would have more opportunity than any of the previous four. He planned to flex his scoring potential. To start some games but be the team’s most dependable big man coming off a remade bench.
Has not happened. Might never happen. So continues the hoping and waiting and probably praying.