The Oklahoma City Thunder are able to breathe a sigh of relief of sorts on Thanksgiving Day.
Rookie guard Hamidou Diallo was carted off the court on a stretcher with 7:17 left in last night’s 123-95 road win against the Golden State Warriors. Per the Thunder, he avoided serious injury after X-rays and Warriors doctors evaluated him.
According to ESPN’s Royce Young, Diallo sustained a left ankle sprain and will be re-evaluated in 7-10 days.
Update on Hamidou Diallo: After further evaluation today, he officially has a left ankle sprain and will be re-evaluated in 7-10 days.
— Royce Young (@royceyoung) November 22, 2018
Diallo’s left leg was stabilized as he was wheeled away to applause from the Oracle Arena crowd. Diallo was credited for rebounding Jonas Jerebko’s missed layup when they both went down hard. Clearly in pain, Diallo moved himself off the court and was under basket for several minutes.
Young reported that Diallo exited the locker room with a boot on his left foot and was using crutches. Diallo was reportedly in good spirits, though, as he left the arena — somewhat surprising news considering how scary the play looked.
Young reports the initial fear regarding Diallo was that he possibly suffered a broken left leg. Thunder forward Paul George called Diallo’s injury an ankle sprain, although the team has yet to officially say what Diallo’s injury is.
“I was hoping, praying it was nothing too serious, that it wasn’t his knee,” George told ESPN after the game. “I think we can all say it’s the best news that it was his ankle and it was a sprain.”
“Just having each other’s back. When guys go down, we’re a family here and we have to have our brother’s back, and that’s what we’re going to do,” said guard Russell Westbrook.
In a loss Monday at Sacramento, Diallo became the first Thunder rookie ever to go at least 7 for 7 from the floor. He made both his 3-point tries on the way to 18 points.
Aside from Diallo’s injury, some other Thunder players got dinged up in the win against Golden State. Terrance Ferguson returned from a two-game absence as he welcomed a baby, then went down at the 5:41 mark of the first quarter with a sprained left ankle and didn’t return. Nerlens Noel received stitches after getting hit in the face during the second quarter.
”There’s just been a lot of things on this road trip that have impacted any level of consistency, our rotation, of having any idea of who’s going to be playing,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said after the game.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
