Kevin Love won’t be going under the knife to fix his latest hand injury. The All-Star forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers suffered a broken left hand on Tuesday night, ending his hopes of actually playing on Team LeBron and helping the Cavaliers during an important stretch of the season.
An up-and-down year for Love won’t include surgery, though, as the team announced Love will let the injury heal on its own over the next two months or so, and reevaluate him at that point.
According to a team release, Love explored his options with doctors before deciding on “nonsurgical treatment and rehabilitation” to let the fracture of his fifth metacarpal heal on its own.
Kevin Love continued the examination and consultation process related to the non-displaced fracture of his left hand fifth metacarpal in New York City yesterday at the Hospital for Special Surgery. The examination and consultation process, including the Cavaliers medical team, Head Team Physician Dr. James Rosneck and Dr. Steven Maschke of Cleveland Clinic Sports Health and Dr. Michelle Carlson of the Hospital for Special Surgery, is now complete. Love will undergo a non-surgical treatment and rehabilitation process to repair the injury and is currently projected to be out for approximately eight weeks. His status will be updated as appropriate.
No surgery often means the injury is less severe, or at least that doctors feel it can heal in time and they can avoid further complications surgery can sometimes bring. But the timeline for recovery hasn’t changed here: Love will miss a lot of time for the Cavaliers, and they might really find out just how much they need him during this stretch.
