Few NBA stars have welcomed Nikola Jokic into the inner circle like Kevin Durant, who seemingly has always had the three-time MVP’s back. Now the legendary scoring wing is thinking about Jokic’s knee, too — sharing his experience from suffering a similar injury twice over his Hall of Fame career.
“One thing I don’t want to see with Nikola is like, they started calling me ‘injury prone’ after that, but hopefully they don’t start with him because it’s one of those freak injuries that you can’t really control,” Durant said Thursday night after a Rockets win. “You can do all the work you can, but somebody falls into your knee, that’s just tough.”
Nikola Jokic went down with an apparent leg injury vs. the Heat. pic.twitter.com/4kPf9HAOt8
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 30, 2025
Jokic hyperextended his knee on Monday against the Heat, resulting in a bone bruise, which was diagnosed on Tuesday and carried a reevaluation date of four weeks. Given how scary the injury looked initially, that may have been a blessing, but it will still result in the most games missed of the big fella’s career.
It’s hard to think Jokic could even get an injury-prone label, given how little time he’s missed, but Durant knows the sport and the way it is covered better than just about anyone.
[Highlight] Kevin Durant walks off the court after Bruce Brown falls into his knee
by innba
Durant actually had a really similar issue in 2022 when Bruce Brown knocked into him when the two played for the Nets. Durant was hit with a sprained medial collateral ligament in his left knee, which cost him 21 games. Two years later, Jimmy Butler fell on his right knee, resulting in another sprained ligament. But if you go backward, not forward, he hurt his knee another time when Zaza Pachulia fell into him.
“So it’s good to see it’s only four weeks and it’s not anything too big,” Durant said. “It wasn’t an MCL sprain or Level 2; it felt like it was just a tweak and he’s going to be back out there soon. He’s great for the game and you want to see the best players on the floor at all times.”
Durant and Jokic are back in the same conference, and the two have had some epic regular-season, playoff and international battles over the years. There’s obviously a huge amount of respect between the two stars, which is nice to see. They very well could be competing against each other for postseason seeding this year, with a possible series coming soon after. The Rockets and Nuggets have had some really hard-fought games so far in 2025-26.
