The invitation from Myers is easy to accept. The cleanest explanation is that the Warriors were not as careful as they should have been, or would have been under different circumstances; that their attention to their star player’s health existed in some kind of relation to the direness of their challenge. Complicating matters is the fact that Durant was due to be a free agent at year’s end—he may now opt to stay with the team while rehabbing his injury—which, in the cynic’s view, could have made the Warriors less invested in his long-term health. Myers recognizes that the cynic’s view will likely be the prevailing one. “The people that worked with [Durant] and cleared him are good people,” he said preemptively at the postgame presser. “They’re good people.”

The ramifications of Durant’s injury are extensive. The immediate effect is that, if his recovery spans the usual year-plus required of an Achilles injury, the NBA will be without one of its most exciting figures, with a guard’s handle and an all-time shooting stroke ludicrously packaged into a nearly 7-foot frame. His absence will alter the direction of the league this summer, as organizations lined up to pursue him in free agency will have to decide whether he’s worth the risk; predicted super teams may quickly become the stuff of alternative histories. The most frightening and humane worry is that Durant might never be the same again. A torn Achilles almost invariably leaves players lessened, robbing them of some measure of grace. The prospect is doubly sad when the player in question is one of the sport’s most graceful.

Durant’s injury is not the only aspect of these finals that illustrates the tensions between labor and management in professional sports. Kawhi Leonard, the Raptors’ star forward, was traded to the team last summer from the San Antonio Spurs, with whom he had feuded for the better part of a season over their handling of his own quadriceps injury; his team-leading turn in this year’s playoffs rebuffs those who would claim to understand his ailments better than he does. In the series’ third game, after the Toronto guard Kyle Lowry fell into the first row of seats chasing a loose ball, the Warriors’ part owner Mark Stevens reached over and pushed him. Lowry was rightly upset—less, it seemed, by the force of the shove than by the sense of entitlement that led to it, the implication that sitting courtside equates to some degree of ownership over players’ bodies.

After Game 5, the Warriors held to fallen-comrade sports cliché. “Prayers up to K.D.,” Stephen Curry said in a postgame interview. “He gave us what he could.” Klay Thompson praised Durant’s courage, saying, “For him to put his health on the line, to come back and compete at the highest level, he’s one of the best to ever do it.” Durant posted to Instagram after the game: “I’m hurting deep in the soul right now I can’t lie but seeing my brothers get this win was like taking a shot of tequila, i got new life lol.”