Although a return to the court this year is still very unlikely, Gordon Hayward has taken one step closer to being cleared to play.
Stevens says Hayward will start a new regimen on the anti-gravity treadmill on Sunday. Still a while before he’d start traveling with Cs.
— Adam Himmelsbach (@AdamHimmelsbach) February 23, 2018
The anti-gravity treadmill will allow Hayward to walk and run to continue his rehab, while not putting as much pressure on his ankle that was fractured.
It has been a long road back for Hayward who fractured his ankle only a few minutes into his first regular season game with the Boston Celtics.
The process to get back to the court hasn't been easy and he talked about it on his personal blog titled “The Rehab Grind.”
Article Continues Below“The hardest part of all of this is the mental grind,” Hayward wrote. “It's a lot of time doing pretty boring things to get the slightest bit better every day, and of course, sometimes I don't get better. Sometimes I take a small step back because my ankle didn't react well to the thing that I did the day before. And so we have to walk it back a little. That's the hardest part, and the most frustrating part for sure.”
The Celtics really hoped that Hayward would be the key to get them past the Cleveland Cavaliers but they are probably going to have to wait until next year to get his services back.
Hayward signed a max four-year, $128 million dollar contract with the Celtics during last summer's free agent period after starting his career with the Jazz.
Last year with the Utah Jazz, Hayward averaged 21.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 3.5 assists. When he does return to Celtics, he and Kyrie Irving are going to be a really hard duo to slow down.