Rudy Gay attempted to drive the baseline late in the third quarter Wednesday night, to finish strong at the basket in a game the Kings had to win. He never made it.
The veteran forward went down in a heap, his left Achilles' tendon torn, and the emotions of his teammates went down with him. Gay was carried off the court by second-year center Willie Cauley-Stein and members of the Kings training staff, including Pete Youngman, his leg not able to withstand any weight.
An MRI on Thursday morning confirmed the severity of the injury. The small forward will have surgery and will be lost for the remainder of the season.
An Achilles tear generally takes between 6-10 months to heal, and studies have shown the tendon never heals completely.
Gay will not join his teammates in Memphis on Friday, when the Kings begin a season-high eight-game road trip. It follows one of the team's most deflating losses of the season, a 106-102 setback in which the Kings blew a 22-point lead to end the team's longest homestand of the season with a 1-6 record.
In the Kings' dressing room late Wednesday, Gay was quiet and somber. He didn't speak with reporters before walking out of the arena gingerly on crutches with a walking boot on his left foot, a hoodie covering his head.
While Gay didn't share his thoughts, his coach and teammates did. They made it clear what Gay means to the team as a player and a teammate.
"Breaks my heart," Kings coach Dave Joerger said. "It's really sinking in. He's one of the nicest dudes on the planet."
Said Kings guard Ty Lawson on watching Gay go down: "It kind of hurt my soul. Once I (saw) him on the ground, I felt sick. I felt like something in me just dropped."
The Kings fell to a season-worst nine games under .500 at 16-25, though they remain just a game-and-a-half out of the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference scramble. The playoffs are not on the minds of players now. Gay, 30, is the Kings' second-highest scorer averaging 18.7 points a game.
Gay planned this coming summer to opt out of the last year of a contract that would pay him $14.7 million for the 2017-18 season. That now seems unlikely.
Gay had also been mentioned across the league as a trade asset.
"Disaster tonight," Kings All-Star center DeMarcus Cousins said summarizing the game overall. "That's hard to watch (Rudy going down and getting carried off). That's the tough thing in life. It sucks for Rudy. This is a guy with a family, a guy with a career he cares deeply about. This is a big year for him.
"Put the team to the side, the whole season, and just him as a man, it sucks for him. I hate it. I hate it for him. It's hard. It's hard to sit there and not psyche yourself out, to not start thinking about your own body, the same thing happening to you on the next play."
Players said it is on them to salvage the season. There is still plenty to play for.
"We've got to become even more mentally strong, grow even closer as a team, learn to appreciate each other even more," Cousins said. "I hope this opens our eyes and lets us know how valuable this is, appreciate each other.
"We'll finish this season out for Rudy. This is for Rudy. Regardless of the (stuff) going on with the business aspect of the game, that's still our brother. We have to finish this out for Rudy."
