Kevon Looney's Cartilage Injury Makes Warriors' Title Hunt That Much More Absurd [CORRECTED]

What was initially described somewhat confusingly as a “ sprained collarbone” for Warriors center Kevon Looney has, upon further inspection, been revealed as a fracture. Looney, an underrated non-star contributor for the Golden State Warriors, seems unlikely to return for the rest of the NBA Finals.

The spill that busted up Looney’s collarbone [CORRECTION: Wojnarowski deleted his initial report on Looney’s injury and has since clarified that the injury is to cartilage in Looney’s chest, and not to the collarbone.] was nasty, and occurred in the first quarter of Sunday’s Game 2 win over the Raptors. Looney tried to slide into the paint to cut off a Kawhi Leonard drive, and Leonard leveraged one of his humongous shoulders into Looney’s midsection just as Looney’s feet left the ground, sending Looney pinwheeling to the floor for an awkward landing. To add insult to literal injury, Looney was whistled for a blocking foul on the play:

So the Warriors will play Game 3 with a recovering Klay Thompson, a recovering DeMarcus Cousins, a pretty much perpetually hurt Andre Iguodala, no Kevin Durant, and now no Looney. On the one hand it’s very encouraging that Cousins was able to play so capably Sunday, and for so many minutes. On the other hand, relying on him keep up that workload so soon after a bad leg injury without several ligaments snapping like worn guitar strings is a dicey proposition. If the Warriors pull this off and win their third consecutive Finals, they will for sure have earned it.