Giants pitcher Robb Nen sacrificed his career in pursuit of a title: Here’s why he stands behind Kevin Durant

Robb Nen wasn’t watching when Kevin Durant suffered the Achilles injury heard ‘round the world on Monday night. Nen was flipping channels and clicked from the NBA Finals over to baseball, naturally, to see what was going on in the Dodgers-Angels game.

But Nen didn’t need to see a crestfallen Durant grab his lower leg to understand the magnitude of the moment. Nen didn’t need to hear the fiery debate about whether the Warriors and their superstar were courageous or foolhardy in rushing Durant back.

Nen didn’t need to see it because he lived it. In 2002, the All-Star closer knowingly and willingly jeopardized his career to try to help the Giants win the World Series. Nen wound up 0 for 2. The Angels toppled the Giants in seven dramatic games and his tattered rotator cuff wound up pushed beyond the point of no return.

Nen never pitched again after a blown save in Game 6. His career was toast at age 32, despite a regular season in which he was at the peak of his powers with 43 saves and a 2.20 ERA.

Still, Nen never wavered in his decision to risk permanent injury in pursuit of San Francisco’s first World Series title.

Not then. Not now.

“I still wouldn’t change anything I did,’’ Nen said by phone Tuesday evening.

So, yes, Nen understands as well as anyone on the planet what Durant, 30, is going through. And he understands the deliberations that must have gone into an organization making such a perilous short-term decision.

But Nen endorses the gamble, assuming it’s what Durant wanted to do. You roll the dice, you pay the price. The World Series or the NBA Finals aren’t exactly the time to be watching from the bench, he said.

“Every guy that’s out there wants to win a ring and wants to be part of it. They want to be in the middle of the celebration,’’ said Nen, now 49. “I think (Durant) put himself out there and wanted to do everything he could to help that team win. And to see that is pretty awesome.”

Pretty awesome? Durant indeed helped propel the Warriors to a 106-105 victory over the Toronto Raptors, forcing a Game 6 on Thursday night at Oracle Arena. But he also sustained what the team reportedly believes is a torn Achilles that could sideline him indefinitely and raises questions about whether his game will ever be the same.

Coming back from serious injury is never a given in sports, and Nen understands that first-hand, too. Even as his velocity vanished in October 2002, he assumed he’d get fixed up and get back to firing rockets. He was wrong. An extensive rehab process failed to revive those missing mph, so Nen surrendered and walked away after 314 saves.

Why did he risk it all so young?

“The way I looked at it, I was getting paid,’’ Nen said. “And I still felt like I could help the team. We had some great momentum going on and we were kind of on a roll. I really didn’t want to sit and be on the sidelines and not be a part of it.

“So, for me, it was as long as I could still go out and get people out and be effective, I thought I could still go out and pitch and do my job.”

Nen carried on in 2002 despite persistent pain in his shoulder. It started around the All-Star break, then took a turn for the worse just before the postseason — when the Giants took to turning off the stadium radar gun as he strolled into “Smoke on the Water” in order to hide his dwindling velocity. (A scoreboard malfunction, they said at the time).

Nen wasn’t the baseball equivalent of Durant, but the right-hander was a force: two seasons earlier he’d finished fourth in the National League Cy Young Award voting, behind three faces you can see on Cooperstown plaques: Randy Johnson, Tom Glavine and Greg Maddux.

The premature retirement was heartbreaking for both Nen and for Stan Conte, the longtime Giants trainer who gave the pitcher the blessing to give it a go. Conte laid out the risk factors for Nen and left it to the pitcher make the ultimate decision. The two remain close, bonded by the travails of 2002.

Still, Nen now says that he’s not sure he got the full picture. “I don’t think it was completely laid out to me,’’ he said, “but I don’t think it would have changed my mind if it was.

“Yeah, I knew the consequences. I knew anything could happen for sure. And I think it was one those deals where we were just in the moment.

“Do I blame Stan? No. Do I blame myself? No. I think we all made the right decision. We went out there and did what we needed to do to get ourselves to the World Series.  I think we were on the same page, for sure.”

Conte watched the Warriors play Game 5 on Monday while in Arizona with his son, Nick, also an athletic trainer who has a doctorate in physical therapy. Shortly before tipoff, they had the kind of conversation that father/son trainers have while watching a sporting event. They pondered the nature of the calf strain Durant was about to attempt playing through and speculated on what happened behind the scenes to get him on the court.

There’s no saying who made the final call on Durant, although a tearful team president Bob Myers said late Monday night that he took responsibility. Conte has been through enough of these “return to play” meetings regarding star players to suspect that everyone had some kind of voice.

“I can tell you that that there’s not a medical department in sports that wouldn’t have taken this all the way to the top, probably even to ownership,’’ Conte said.

He also ventured that the Warriors’ medical staff would have had to consider the location of the strain. With an injury away from the Achilles tendon, the biggest risk would seem to be irritating the calf strain again. But a strain close to the where the muscle attaches to the Achilles gets dicey.

“So the question is, did they think the risk was to aggravate the muscle? A really bad muscle strain heals over time, no matter how bad it is,’’ Conte said by phone Tuesday, adding that that kind of injury requires about a month-and-a-half recovery time.

“But an Achilles tendon rupture can be career-ending. And, of course, in basketball, you can go back to Kobe Bryant. He’s the one who had that several years ago. It’s a significant surgery and it is a lonnnng rehab.”

Considering the apocalyptic risk to Durant’s career, Conte said if the Warriors knew an Achilles was at stake then, “I would assume that the player made that decision to take that chance. Because, medically, I don’t think the medical department would do that.”

Left up the athlete, that’s almost universally the case. Players want to play. It’s the culture of sports. Risking an injury is one thing; but being labeled soft by bowing out of a championship series goes against what Conte calls “the warrior” mentality. Durant, sensitive to criticism, was already facing pressure from fans and media to suck it up and get on the damn court to save a dynasty.

“In medicine, we say the ‘retro-scope’ is 100 percent,’’ Conte said. “Looking back, yeah, of course he shouldn’t have played! Of course! Who would do that?

“But how many times have we made a sports figure a hero by playing through a concussion? By playing with a broken bone? We blow that up to show how great that athlete is to do whatever is necessary to get on the field and win the game. So there’s that psychological process.

“What happens when they don’t play? Well, they’re kind of stigmatized. ‘Oh, you mean it’s the seventh game of the World Series and you’re a little sore? And you don’t want to pitch? What’s wrong with you?’”

When an athlete such as Nen or Durant puts the team over their own interests, they are doing what players are taught from the first time they pick up a ball.  Conte noted that the highest rate of Tommy John surgeries is happening among 15- to 19-year-olds, largely because the warrior mentality pervades the youth leagues, too. Young pitchers are counted on to throw on short rest because some overzealous coach really needs to win the big Little League game.

“This (injury) is just highlighted because it’s a high-profile game and it’s Kevin Durant. But this happens every weekend in every sport — unfortunately at every level,’’ Conte said. “There are parents and coaches who think this showcase is the most important thing in this kid’s life, even if it kills them. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. They don’t have a longer view of this.”

Nen, like Durant, already had a championship on his resume when he decided to risk his well-being for another. (Nen won a title with the 1997 Marlins.) But that experience only fueled his desire to win another one. Because the first one was a blur, Nen wanted a championship he could truly savor and envisioned him watching players such as Shawon Dunston, J.T. Snow and Barry Bonds diving into a giddy pile for the first time.

“I really wanted to take it in because you never know how many times you’re going to be there,’’ Nen said.

And now, the man who would know thinks Durant must have been thinking along the same lines.

“For me, I could have made that final out. For him, he could have made that final shot to clinch it, to win it,’’ Nen said. “That’s kind of what we all dream about as kids, is to have a chance to be that hero.”

(Photo: Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images)