Most athletes who tore their ACL returned back to action but were never the same again. Fortunately, it seems that the same will not be true for the New York Knicks' Kristaps Porzingis, or at least, it's starting to look like that.
In Episode 2 of Porzingis' documentary entitled Porzingis' Comeback, his surgeon, Dr. David Altchek said that his ACL has ‘the best prognosis' for healing.
Kristaps Porzingis' surgeon, Dr. David Altchek, says in Porzingis' documentary that his ACL tear type has 'the best prognosis' for healing because there was no cartilage or ligament damage: https://t.co/2uBTi7YqHS
— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) July 6, 2018
To recall, Porzingis tore his ACL on February 6 in a 103-89 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks. He was subsequently ruled out of the season.
In 48 games last season, he logged in a career best of 22.7 points per game. He also snagged 6.6 rebounds and swatted 2.4 blocks. The 22-year-old was also named into the All-Star team but missed the game due to the injury.
David Fizdale, the Knicks' newly-minted head coach, already has plans on how to utilize the 7-foot-3 center. Given his mobility and shooting prowess, Fizdale says that Porzingis has the flexibility to go down to the small forward position. Per Stefan Bondy of the Daily News, Fizdale shared:
“In our conversations I just told him, ‘I don’t have a position for you. Are you cool with that?’” Fizdale said. “He’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ He doesn’t want to be put in a box. I’m not going to put him in a position to fail. I’m not going to throw him in a situation where he’s going against some brute out there at center and get beat to death. At the same time our league doesn’t really have a lot of those type of guys anymore. He gives me a lot of flexibility to move him to power forward, to center and even some small forward.”
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