SACRAMENTO — With his left leg still immobilized in a bulky black brace that runs from the middle of his calf to his thigh, Moses Moody boarded the Warriors’ team bus for their final road trip of the regular season.
Less than a month since tearing the patellar tendon in his left knee on a non-contact play and only two weeks removed from surgery to repair the injury, the fifth-year wing felt it was important to return to the company of his Warriors teammates.
“Just being able to come back and be back in the locker room, feel like a player again, be on the sideline,” Moody said, bearing his weight on a pair of crutches.
The Warriors’ Moses Moody received a positive prognosis after tearing the patellar tendon in his left knee. AP Moody, 23, won’t see the court again until next season after suffering the injury March 23 against the Mavericks. Still early in the rehab process, he hasn’t set a timeline yet.
But he said doctors gave him a positive prognosis.
“They told me for a patellar tendon tear, this is the best-case scenario,” Moody said. “Straight from the bone, a clear tear.”
The play looked gruesome, but Moody said it was painless. It wasn’t until he looked down and saw the same visual fans did on TV that he knew it was more serious than a dislocation.
“I [didn’t] know what it was, but I knew it was something,” he said.
Moody was enjoying one of his strongest games of the season, his first back from missing 10 with a sprained wrist, with 23 points in regulation of the 137-131 overtime win in Dallas.
Early in overtime, he stole the ball from Cooper Flagg around midcourt and looked to be on his way to an easy breakaway dunk. He leaped and then crumpled into a heap beneath the hoop.
“I thought we bumped knees a little bit or something. Then going back to look at it, [Flagg] was nowhere near me,” Moody said. “I haven’t watched it that many times. I’ve seen it but not a lot.”
On the Warriors’ broadcast, color commentator Kelenna Azubuike knew right away that Moody’s patellar tendon had ruptured. It was the same injury that ended his career.
Moody said he’s consulted with other players who have had the same injury, including Azubuike, and the “good news,” he said, is that “our injuries happened in a different way.”
Moody was injured March 23 in an NBA game against the Mavericks. Getty Images Doctors were able to surgically reconnect Moody’s tendon at the bone, rather than having to suture the tendon to itself, which should make the healing process easier. The operation took 90 minutes, and by the next day, Moody had already started his rehab.
Moody said he has dealt with patellar tendon issues dating back to middle school that the surgery and rehab process will allow him to address.
“Coming back,” he said, “I think I’m gonna be able to be in a better place than I was when I left because of it.”
While Moody recently rejoined his teammates, he enjoyed stepping away from the frenetic pace of the NBA season. His first call following the injury was to his mom, and he said, “I talk to my people on the phone all the time now.”
“It’s a unique time in my life being able to slow down,” he said. “In an NBA season you’re ripping and running, doing so much, traveling so much. So being able to slow down, sit down, have a routine, get better with some stuff, talk to my family … just being intentional with my time is something I’ve been focusing on.”
Following that logic, there was some thought to Moody’s decision to rejoin his teammates so quickly and accompany them on the road. He said he will spend most of his time rehabbing in the Bay Area.
In his first game back at Chase Center, fans gave him an extended ovation while he was shown on the videoboard standing in the tunnel on crutches.
“The love that I got, I appreciate that a lot — that was big for me,” he said. “Just being able to feel it in the arena. I really enjoyed it.”
