Rondo still hopes to return ahead of schedule
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| Via Boston.com |
Much like last season, Rondo is already doing his best to be ready to go sooner rather than later in his recovery from off season surgery to repair the broken bones in his hand. He’s recently been seen shooting with a brace on his surgically repaired hand in practice and warm ups prior to some of the preseason games.
One of the main differences between last year and this year though is the fact that Rondo has been pretty quite publicly about his work getting back. He recently did a 1 on 1 with the lovely Emily Austen of Celtics.com and discussed how he’s progressing in coming back from his injury:
"I'm doing pretty good," said Rondo, who has been doing non-contact work at practice. "My hand is feeling better and better each day. I'm able to do new things with the ball on the court, just not accepting contact right now."
Of the increased workload, he continued: "It felt pretty good. (Strength and conditioning coach Bryan Doo) fouled me pretty hard on (the injured) hand and it didn't hurt. So hopefully that's a good sign and in a couple of days I'll get a CT scan and see how the bone is healing."
Although unsure of when he will return, Rondo still wants to expedite the process:
"I have no idea. Like I said before, I have the self-proclaimed best surgeon in the world in (team doctor Brian) McKeon," Rondo said. "So hopefully, if he's the best surgeon in the world, I should be able to be ahead of the 6-8 weeks (timeline the Celtics have announced)."
The original timetable had Rondo missing anywhere from 1 to 3 weeks of the regular season, even though he would love to come back for opening night. There’s no way the team will let him suit up on October 29th even if he felt he was ready. The Celtics and team doctors will be overly cautious with his return and be sure that his hand is 100% ready to go.
Despite all the conditioning work he’s doing Rondo knows the only way to be in basketball shape is by playing actual, competitive NBA basketball:
"The best conditioning is just to play basketball," he said. "I can run as many sprints as possible on the treadmill or bike as much as possible, but it's nothing like when you get back out there on the floor and get up and down, and you get banged, you hit the floor, get up, you get through 70 picks in a game. So it's going to take some time, but I'll be pretty good."
I think we’re all looking forward to Rondo’s return to the court just so this team will have some sort of direction. Rondo definitely has a date circled on his calendar for returning, however there's no what he’ll not share it with us yet. Just wait for the obscure, cryptic tweet from Rondo prophesying when he’ll be back.
Quotes courtesy of Jay King at Masslive
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