Brad Stevens expects Kristaps Porzingis to miss start of 2024-25 season
"We don't know exactly when he'll be back."
Speaking to the media on Monday, Celtics president of basketball operations Brad Stevens confirmed that center Kristaps Porzingis will undergo surgery to repair a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon in his left ankle.
While the Celtics noted in its statement that Porzingis was expected to miss the 2024 Olympics with Latvia, Stevens did not offer a definitive timeline as to how long the 28-year-old big man is expected to be on the shelf.
But during an appearance on The Ringer’s Ryen Russillo’s podcast, Stevens acknowledged on Wednesday that Porzingis will likely not be available when Boston begins its title defense at the start of the 2024-25 season.
“We’re going to be different right out of the gate simply because we have guys like Kristaps after his surgery — we don’t know exactly when he’ll be back. But he’ll probably miss at least the very start of the season,” Stevens said. “That’ll be a great opportunity for us to do things [differently] and have to find different solutions and those types of things that come with it. And then we’ll just evaluate our team like we always do.”
Porzingis suffered his ankle injury during Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Mavericks — the second set-back he went through during the postseason after missing more than a month of playoff action with a calf strain.
The 7-foot-2 center did not play in Games 3 and 4 against the Mavericks while recovering from his ankle injury. He did log 16 minutes in Boston’s Game 5 championship clincher against Dallas, chipping in with five points and a rebound.
But Porzingis was clearly laboring on that ankle, noting after Boston’s championship that his mobility was severely compromised after Game 2.
“It was, like, something torn. And then my tendon is just out of place. And it pretty much hurts on every step,” Porzingis acknowledged. “Like, I would take a walk in Dallas, and my leg would swell up.
“I was like, I don’t know how I’m going to play, if I’m going to play. But my mindset was always, I’m going to try to find a way how I can manage this. And, yeah, somehow I got it going for this game. A lot of it was for sure like the adrenaline from just playing at the Garden and playing in front of our fans and having that opportunity to close it out. And, man, I got it going.”
The Celtics still managed to go 11-2 this postseason without Porzingis in the lineup, so Boston does have the luxury of giving him all the time he needs to recover — especially over the course of a long, 82-game season.
To comment, please create a screen name in your profile
To comment, please verify your email address
Conversation
This discussion has ended. Please join elsewhere on Boston.com