There have been some discrepancies recently regarding Gordon Hayward‘s recovery from the devastating leg injury he suffered on opening night back in October. Hayward himself has either hinted at or stated directly on several occasions that he’d like to return to action this season.
But Celtics coach Brad Stevens has gone on record firmly stating that will not, in fact, play again for Boston this season. Still, the apparent finality of that statement hasn’t seemed to deter Hayward in his hope for a return to action. The whole situation got even more complicated when Danny Ainge announced last week that Hayward had suffered some sort of setback during rehab although he clarified that later, explaining it was more Hayward tried to start running a bit too soon and they had to delay that portion of the rehab than an actual setback.
In any case, that rehab process is ongoing and apparently includes an exercise in which Hayward picks up marbles with his toes, we’re assuming to work on ankle mobility and strengthen certain muscle groups in his feet that haven’t been getting used much otherwise.
Every day I'm a step closer to being back. @PlayersTribune pic.twitter.com/zExMdb419r
— Gordon Hayward (@gordonhayward) March 26, 2018
This is pretty impressive work from Hayward to go perfect from the field, per se, in getting the marbles into the bucket. As stated in the video, Hayward has improved his overall prehensile strength and coordination dramatically from when he first started doing this exercise, cutting his time down from nearly five minutes to just under 24 seconds.
But let’s try and resist the urge to read too much into this. It’s a world away from having anything to do with the basketball court. Yes, the Celtics have been pretty banged up lately, and Kyrie Irving’s injury and subsequent surgery has put their postseason aspirations in jeopardy, but there’s certainly no need to rush Hayward back to action.
It may simply not be in the cards for the Celtics this season, but they’re still a very young team with a bright future ahead once everyone gets healthy whether that happens this year or next.
