For now, the concern has to be for the player, even here, even in Manhattan, where so much hope — real, imaginary, virtual — has been tied up in the vision of Kevin Durant wearing an orange “35” against a classic white Knicks uniform opening night next year. Or across the East River, where lately a renewed hope casting him in a black “Brooklyn” jersey has arisen, too.
We are not savages, after all, certainly not of the category of the guttersnipes in the Toronto crowd who Monday cheered when Durant crumpled to the floor, something clearly amiss.