Kelly Olynyk's shoulder evaulation date delayed, likely to miss remainder of preseason

It looks like the Celtics are going to have to wait a little while longer to see three-point extraordinaire, Kelly Olynyk, on the court.

Olynyk underwent surgery on his right shoulder on May 17 and was expected to be re-evaluated in New York this week during the Celtics' two-game road trip, but those plans were derailed. According to head coach Brad Stevens, Olynyk's doctor was out of town, via Marc D' Amico of Celtics.com:

“Kelly has not been evaluated. His doctor was out of town. We hope to get that done sometime in the very, very near future, but it may not happen this weekend now.”

It's worth noting that there hasn't been any sort of setback in Olyknyk's rehab process or any aggravation of the shoulder, but the Celtics and Kelly would have benefitted from him experiencing some live, full-contact game action. Coach Stevens, however, doesn't seem to believe it's a huge deal:

“I think it would be a benefit (for him to play during the preseason), but it’s not the end-all, be-all. I don’t think that we should – obviously you’re not going to rush him if he’s not cleared or ready just to play in a preseason game.”

Unfortunately, Olynyk has a history of injuries to his right shoulder. In February he suffered a "partial dislocation" of the joint and missed 12 games but he never truly got back to form. He tweaked the same shoulder in Game 1 of the first-round playoff matchup against the Atlanta Hawks. He missed Games 2 and 3 and returned for the remainder of the six-game series but was largely ineffective. In total he averaged 8.0 minutes per game and 0.5 points per game during the series.

Despite his history, Olynyk has remained positive throughout the rehab process. In early August he said, via Jay King of Mass Live:

"Rehab's gone well and range of motion's pretty much all back and it's definitely getting a lot stronger. It just needs to finally heal and you can't kind of just jump back because you might feel good but it's physically not healed, you haven't given it enough time to heal, so you just have to kind of let it heal while working on getting it stronger, getting in condition, getting movement back. It's been going really, really well. I've been on track and maybe a little bit ahead, so it's definitely going well."

But with only three games left on the preseason slate, the odds of Olynyk seeing any minutes are growing very slim.



Photo credit: Brandon Dill/AP
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