SAN FRANCISCO — One little knee ‘tweak’ could’ve changed everything for Klay Thompson and the Golden State Warriors.
Hours before Sunday’s tip-off against the Utah Jazz, Thompson just had a run through and was planning on playing until Warriors Director of Sports Medicine and Performance Rick Celebrini noticed the way Thompson was moving and suggested otherwise. Celebrini thought Thompson should sit, and relayed his concerns to Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.
“I didn’t realize that anything was wrong and Rick said that it would be best to hold him out because he has a tweak in the knee,” Kerr said prior to the game.
Since the soreness is inhis surgically repaired knee, the Warriors thought it would be wise to sit Thompson for Utah and sit him out of practice Monday to give the knee time to rest and for the pain to subside.
Before Tuesday’s game against the Mavericks, Thompsons’ status was upgraded from questionable to available and starting. While the soreness in Thompson’s hyperextended knee subsided enough for him to play, should the Warriors be concerned now?
Thompson had knee surgery to repair his torn ACL in July of 2019. While in rehab, Thompson ruptured his Achilles and had surgery in November, 2020. In the 941 days Thompson was sidelined before his emotional return two weeks ago, the on-court work was limited. You can run, cut, and plant to test the strength of the knee but the true test is in an actual game, and rehab can’t properly simulate or replicate the experience of a game. According to UCSF Associate Professor of Orthopedic Surgery and 95.7 The Game Injury Insider, Dr. Nirav Pandya, soreness months after surgery is common.
“I think just given the time that he’s been away from the game, it’s very common for the joint whether you had surgery on it or another area to get sore. Just because it’s hard to really reproduce what it’s like in a game in practice or rehab,” Pandaya said. “A lot of athletes coming back from these major injuries will have some degree of soreness or kind of tweaks and things like that. I think the thing you always get worried about though is ‘could there always be a risk of a structural injury inside that knee?’ But in general, when athletes are away for that long period of time, you can see soreness but you get concerned because it’s on the same side as where he had surgery before.”
Pandaya believes that the Warriors are taking the smart approach with Thompson. The Warriors holding him out of those two games may be best in the bigger picture of the remainder of the season and playoffs.
“It’s better to be safe for two reasons. One is it gives you the time if it is just soreness to let it resolve because any athlete who has gotten soreness you don’t want them to have pain,” he says.
“I think secondly, if one of the things they are probably looking at is to check is this soreness happening because Klay is doing something abnormal in terms of his running or jumping. Is he moving in a kind of way that’s causing him to put more pressure on that area? So you want to nip those things in the bud pretty early because he has several games to play.
“And the third thing, I think the most important thing people are worried about is in any knee that’s had a prior surgery like an ACL, you take those complaints very seriously. You want to make sure there’s not some sort of cartilage damage, some sort of meniscus damage, or anything else. So, I think it’s important from all three of those fronts particularly given his age, and how long he’s been away, and how important he is to the team.”
At this point, Thompson missing two games for this issue is the Warriors being cautious and not running the risk of further injury. However, if soreness is an ongoing issue, here are some signs that there could be something deeper going on.
– Knee stiffness
– Pain with rest
– Swelling
In Thompson’s return, the Warriors have been monitoring and restricting his minutes. Averaging between 18-24 minutes per game, Thompson played a season-high of 25 minutes in Tuesday night’s 130-92 annihilation of the Mavericks.
If this knee continues to flare up and tweak, what are the Warriors looking at in terms of treatment and management? Due to the fact that Thompson said that the knee was hyperextended, Pandya’s level of concern was heightened.
“That does raise my concern a little bit more of ‘okay he felt fine but was there any kind of damage or any kind of irritation that was done at that point?’ So if it were to come back, I’d worry a little bit more about did that hyperextension cause him? Was there something else that happened at that time that’s going to be a recurring issue.”
If this will be a lingering issue, Pandya suggests modification.
“Assuming that he’s not causing any damage and just has an irritated knee, it is to limit the minutes. If he’s playing 26 and his knees are sore, do you do things like ‘look, you are going to play 20 this next game or you’re going to sit out this next game.’ I think they are already doing it with him not playing back-to-backs, which is key. But it may mean that if it’s not back-to-backs and it reappears, are you then saying ‘look, this is four-game road trip and we are going to have you only playing one game.’ So I would assume barring any structural damage and this keeps popping up, it’s going to have him taking more stretches out to deal with that soreness.”
If this is a trend and Thompson will miss stretches because of a lingering concern, getting an MRI for further examination is likely. For Pandya, Thompson’s threshold should dictate any treatments and modifications
“I think a lot of it has to do with what’s he saying hurts. Is it hurting in an area that’s giving you a little more concern? Is there a lot of pain and swelling, and that’s when you start getting concerned that something else may be going on. It’s not just ‘Klay hasn’t played in 941 days and he’s just sore because he hasn’t really had a chance to get his legs underneath him.’ ”
Thompson’s knee responded well after two-days rest and he was able to play 25 minutes Tuesday. The Warriors had no practice Wednesday, so that’s a day of rest. While the Warriors are being as cautious as they can with Thompson’s knee, this could be something worth monitoring as the season progresses.
