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After limping to the All-Star break, the New York Knicks are bracing for the stretch run toward the postseason with their biggest trade acquisition OG Anunoby back in harness next month.
According to The Athletic’s Fred Katz, Anunoby is on schedule with his recovery from a successful surgery to remove a loose bone fragment from his right elbow which the Knicks announced on February 8.
“Doctors are set to re-evaluate him around March 1. And according to a league source with knowledge of his recovery, the team expects him to return to on-court activities not long after,” Katz reported on February 16.
His injury had a huge impact on the Knicks.
Anunoby has missed the last nine games where the Knicks went 4-5. They were rolling before his injury, winning 12 of his first 14 games with the Knicks since they acquired him from Toronto.
Anunoby would miss five more games before he gets re-evaluated.
According to sports injury expert and certified athletic trainer Jeff Stotts, who operates the website instreetclothes.com, the longest absence for an NBA player who opted for an in-season surgery for the same type of elbow injury was 23 games.
Interestingly, a former Knicks player — Bill Walker — held that record.
Walker missed 53 days after he was initially diagnosed to miss 4 to 6 weeks in 2012.
The shortest in-season surgery for such injury in Stotts’ database was Joe Johnson, who came back after only 19 days during his fifth All-Star season with the Atlanta Hawks in the 2010-11 season.
Knicks Get 3 Players Back After All-Star Break
Before the Knicks slumped to their fourth straight loss in Orlando against a young and brash Magic team on Valentine’s Day, Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau revealed that they would welcome back 3 injured players when they resume their season on February 22 against the Philadelphia 76ers on the road.
Donte DiVincenzo (sore hamstring), Bojan Bogdanovic (sore left calf), and Isaiah Hartenstein (sore Achilles) are all expected to return to Thibodeau’s rotation, per Katz.
DiVincenzo was playing the best stretch of his career before he missed the Knicks’ loss to Magic. In eight games since Anunoby was out, DiVincenzo averaged 26.5 points, 4.3 rebounds and 4.0 assists. The Villanova product shot 39.5% from the 3-point line during that torrid stretch, averaging 5.3 3s per game. He was the league’s best 3-point shooter outside Stephen Curry during that span.
His return would boost the Knicks scoring around their All-Star point guard Jalen Brunson.
Bogdanovic is still feeling his way into the Knicks system with mixed performance during his first two games since they acquired from Detroit. Hartenstein’s return will also bring a huge impact on the Knicks, whose interior defense and rebounding suffered when he was out.
Jalen Brunson’s All-Star Debut
Brunson made the most out of his All-Star debut with 12 points on 5 of 12 shooting in only 18 minutes off the bench.
The Knicks star also produced five assists, four rebounds and one steal to help the Eastern Conference All-Stars to a record-breaking 211-186 rout of the Western Conference All-Stars on February 18 at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
The East’s 211 points were the most in the All-Star Game’s 73-year history, breaking the 196 scored by the West in 2016.
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