By Eurohoops team / info@eurohoops.net
During the 2019-20 season, after Anadolu Efes lost in the EuroLeague Final to CSKA Moscow in Vitoria, the Turkish team was on an unstoppable run. However, for six months Bryant Dunston didn’t appear anywhere near any courts, with the reason staying unknown to this day.
In the first episode of the new “Off the RECourt podcast” with co-hosts Shane Larkin and Elijah Bryant, the defensive-minded specialist commented on what happened to his former Efes teammates.
“There was a crazy tragedy that happened one day, but leading up to the tragedy there was something happening”, he opened. After every practice, he used to finish with a bit of a cold shower, but his teammates Alec Peters and Tibor Pleiss, alongside the trainers, tried to convince him to try cryotherapy.
He had never done it before, but he decided to give it a try one day after practice. However, he then started to not feel his body. “Time is going by, I don’t feel anything. I’m just standing there”, he said.
Once the three minutes ended, he couldn’t even go out of the machine. “I can’t move”, he recalled saying. Coming out shaking, he had frost on his skin, which was starting to get darker. Everything started to hurt, and his left foot was throbbing, with a big purple blister on the back of his foot.
The following day was supposed to play on the road against Olympiacos, and the team’s doctor visited him the night before the game. The dead skin was halfway off, and he convinced himself about playing.
“You’re tripping, man. Are you gonna play like that?”, teammates started asking. But he eventually played, with long sleeves to avoid questions. Anadolu Efes won that game 86-67 in Round 7, and Dunston almost had a double-double with 10 points and 8 rebounds.
From that moment, he was gone. The team kept on rolling at that time, but Bryant Dunston was forced to be sidelined, as a doctor told him he might have frostbite.
During the podcast, co-host Elijah Bryant recalled the situation. “I was in Maccabi and I was like: “Where is Dunston?”, he said. “It never came out”, Shane Larkin added.
“This is the championship season, this is it. I have to come back before the season is over”, Dunston recalled saying. “I don’t want to mess up anything, but I want to get back”. However, nothing was changing on his foot. He had an MRI and he said that “the entire 30 minutes [of MRI] felt like torture”.
After discussing with his agent, he decided to go to Germany to undergo more medical checks on frostbite. He was told that if the frostbite had reached any ligaments or bones, they had to amputate his leg from the knee down. The surgery went long but well.
“Can I play basketball again?”, he asked the doctors after surgery. “We’ll see. It all depends on how you heal”, he got as an answer. Luckily enough, he got back to playing after six months, returning to the court in Round 27 against Maccabi Tel Aviv on the court.
That season, Anadolu Efes‘ run was stopped by COVID-19, and in the following two seasons, Ergin Ataman’s team was crowned EuroLeague champions in back-to-back fashion. Bryant Dunston then left Turkey in 2023 to join Virtus Bologna, and he’s now starting a new adventure with Zalgiris Kaunas.
PHOTO CREDIT: Turkish Airlines EuroLeague