Last season in Marcus Smart’s rookie year, the point guard missed on 15 games in his first season. Now, 19 games into the season and Smart has already missed over half of the teams games.
Smart has missed some time due to a knee injury suffered against the Brooklyn Nets and it appears that Smart might not be coming back anytime soon.
Following from Chris Forsberg of ESPN.com.
Boston Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge said Thursday that guard Marcus Smart is still likely a ”few weeks” away from returning to game action.
During his weekly call to Boston sports radio 98.5 the Sports Hub, Ainge hesitated to offer a timeline for Smart’s return, but told the “Toucher and Rich” program that Smart needs more time to rehab from a subluxation of the proxmial tibfib joint.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Marcus over the last couple of days and he’s been working out and doing his therapy,” Ainge said. “I don’t know a timetable, you never know, Marcus will be the only one that will know when his leg will be completely healed. But the good news is there’s no surgery needed; it’s more like a bad sprain and he just needs time to get it healthy. It’d still probably be another few weeks, I’d guess.”
Celtics coach Brad Stevens originally suggested a “two week plus” timeline for the injury that occurred Nov. 20 when Smart banged knees with Brooklyn’s Thomas Robinson. It now sounds like Smart might not be back until closer to the new calendar year (which is more in line with the 4-6 week recovery that Dr. Mark Adickes suggested was more likely with that injury).
Smart has been out since before Thanksgiving and he possibly could be out going past the Christmas holiday missing around a months time. The Celtics are surviving without him by placing Isaiah Thomas in the starting lineup but not necessarily giving too many minutes to guys like R.J. Hunter or Terry Rozier. Coach Brad Stevens is keeping the rotation tight for now but without Smart, it might be time to expand those minutes.
