Less than two weeks after Caris LeVert suffered a terrifying looking ankle injury that, happily, turned out to only be a dislocation that will not require any surgery, Thunder rookie Hamidou Diallo suffered a similar scare in Oakland.
Diallo, who has looked like one of the steals of the draft as a second-rounder that’s contributing to a contender, went down late in the Thunder’s big win over the Warriors after coming down wrong on his left ankle going for a rebound. Diallo went down and had to be helped off the floor and, understandably, those around the league feared the worst.
Luckily, early tests revealed there wasn’t any serious structural damage and Diallo was ruled to have just a sprained left ankle, which seems like the best case scenario.
Positive news for Oklahoma City despite gruesome-looking injury: Rookie Hamidou Diallo has suffered a left ankle sprain, per league sources on @TheAthleticNBA @WatchStadium. Further tests on Thursday.
— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) November 22, 2018
Now, sprains are certainly not a trivial injury, but it’s certainly a better outcome than the alternatives considering how aggressively his ankle rolled. You can see the injury below, with a warning that it is an ugly roll of his ankle.
https://twitter.com/scott_charlton/status/1065479898066751488
The way he went down and the reaction from Russell Westbrook and others seemed to indicate it would be worse than it was, but happily for Diallo and the Thunder he’s avoided anything serious and, hopefully, can be back on the court in fairly short order.
