Avery Bradley out for the rest of the post season; Boston Celtics short-handed further: NBA News
Boston Celtics shooting guard Avery Bradley will need surgery on his injured left shoulder, President of Basketball operations Danny Ainge revealed on Thursday.
"We'll probably find out more here in the next few hours, but it's looking that way. I think these reports are accurate -- at least the reports I've read. Someone said it was a 90 percent chance that he's done for the season, and
it's looking that way” said Ainge to Boston Sports radio station WEEI.
The surgery will repair small tears in his shoulder which have compromised the structure of the shoulder. Bradley is looking at a 4 month rehabilitation and recovery cycle after the surgery.
The two guard suffered a number of dislocations during the course of the season. In game 4 when his shoulder dislocated while playing against the Sixers in the Eastern Conference Semi Finals, doctors deemed it was too risky to
have him playing more basketball as it could aggravate the injury and cause serious damage. Bradley missed game 5 and 6 of the series.
Bradley will go ahead with the surgery as soon as possible and is expected to be back in time for training camps in October, before the regular season starts.
“Avery needs surgery. So he should have a summer full of rehab, and should be ready to go next year” said Ainge.
Bradley was a first round 19th overall pick of the 2010 NBA Draft. He underwent ankle surgery soon after that had him missing summer camp that year. This preseason, the lockout forced cancellation of summer camp and
shortened the training camp. This will now be the third consecutive summer camp that Bradley will miss.
Avery emerged as a key player in the Boston team-up, taking up the starting position after Ray Allen was sidelined with an ankle injury. He has been a great addition to the Celtics defence, and even got a mention in the All NBA
defensive team this year, including one first team vote.
Celtics coach Doc Rivers admitted after the game 6 loss to the Sixers that Avery’s absence did make an impact in the Celtics game, particularly on defence. But, he continued to say that he cannot be worried about that because he
cannot do anything about Avery’s health and has to move forward with it.
Listen, it's what we have, you know what I mean? Clearly, Avery's a great defender, but he's not out there, so I can't worry about it. I really can't” said Rivers.
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