Getty Former Celtic Isaiah Thomas (left) and Robert Williams III
All in all, it has been an odd NBA postseason for Celtics big man Robert Williams III, who had meniscus surgery on his left knee at the end of March. Because part of the meniscus was removed, not repaired (which takes months of recovery time), his original timetable to come back was four-to-six weeks. Instead, Williams returned on April 17 for Game 3 against Brooklyn, a little less than three weeks after the surgery.
Since then, he has looked spectacular—at times. He has also had moments in which he looked clearly less than 100%. And, as we have seen, there have been plenty of times when the knee simply hurt too much to get on the floor, and Williams sat out altogether.
Williams missed the final four games of the Milwaukee conference semifinals series and Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals against Miami.
But, he told Chris Haynes of Yahoo Sports, the Celtics assured him that coming back to play was not going to cause further injury to the knee.
To which former Celtics star Isaiah Thomas, dredging up an uncomfortable bit of team history, delivered a very tough response, tweeting, “Heard that before lol.”
Isaiah Thomas: ‘Nobody Gave Me No Insight’
A lot to unpack there, of course. Thomas skyrocketed to stardom with the Celtics in 2015-16, when he became an All-Star, and improved on that in 2016-17 when he became an MVP candidate, averaging 28.9 points and 5.9 assists for a team that finished 53-29 on the season and went to the conference finals.
But Thomas injured his hip in March, and according to him, the team labeled the injury a “bone bruise” and did not reveal that there could be more damage done by continuing to play. He played through the problem, and did not finally get shut down until the third game of the East finals.
As he explained on the All the Smoke podcast last year, “The only thing that I think they handled wrong was not explaining to me what the extent of my injury could be if I do play. That was the biggest thing for me that I disliked. ‘Cause nobody gave me no insight, ‘OK, you do play, this can happen.’”
The problem was compounded by the fact that the Celtics then traded Thomas as part of the Kyrie Irving trade that summer. And, heading into free agency, the injury meant Thomas never really cashed in on his two brilliant seasons with Boston. Thomas has earned about $33 million in his NBA career. If not for the injury, he might have been earning nearly that amount per season for four or five years.
Williams Stopped Getting His Knee Drained
Williams told Haynes that the procedure of draining the knee when it would swell up got to be tedious, so he stopped doing it during the conference finals: “I was really having my knee drained a lot last series. I stopped draining it because there was no point, in my opinion. My knee kept filling back up with fluid. So, I’ve kind of learned how to manage it to be able to play.”
Haynes then wrote, “The medical staff has ensured him that he is not at further risk of worsening the repaired knee. It’s all a matter of pain tolerance.”
It should be noted that, back in April when there was speculation on Williams’ return, we reported that there were some within the Celtics organization who wanted to be cautious with Williams, given his history of knee trouble, especially in the left knee, which has been bothersome all year.
The Celtics have a four-year, $48 million extension set to kick in next season for Williams, which he signed before the season. He is not quite in the same situation as Thomas in that respect.
“There were some who worried about the pace of him coming back,” a source told Heavy.com in April. “There is a long-term investment in the guy and there is a thought of, why hurry this? Give him time.”