The Milwaukee Bucks expected Jae Crowder to be back from his adductor injury after an eight-week recovery timetable. January 8 marks the eighth week Crowder has been out of commission, but at this point, there is still no clear target date for his return.
Jae Crowder Vocal on Imminent Return for Milwaukee Bucks
Crowder has been making significant progress since undergoing surgery to repair a problematic groin injury in November. In fact, the 33-year-old is now doing five-on-five work in practice as he looks to return to the fold.
Despite the optimism on his road to recovery, however, even Crowder himself admits that there is no definite return date in sight as of yet:
“No, not right now,” he said, ia Eric Nehm of The Athletic. “I gotta go through this and keep checking the boxes as I go. And I’m not looking too far ahead.”
This isn’t exactly the best of news for Milwaukee fans but at the same time, the silver lining here is that Crowder is definitely getting close.
The 6-foot-6 wing has maintained an optimistic outlook throughout his recovery and he’s refused to let the external pressure get to him. At this point in his career, Crowder knows that nobody else knows his body more than he does.
“I didn’t mind any type of setbacks because I didn’t want to fight just being perfect in this situation, so I didn’t go into it thinking like, ‘I don’t want any setbacks,’ leading up to my five-on-five and getting back on the court, but I did have a set target to get to this point and I pushed myself to get to this point,” he said. “And took care of my body and trying to do the things that I need to do while I’m away from the medical staff, while I’m at home, doing my little stuff that I need to do to get myself back to where I need to be.
“So, I did in the back of my head have this end goal. This is a goal and this is an achievement in this process for me and I’m very happy with where I am at today.”
While that’s all well and good, Bucks supporters would be much happier if Crowder and the medical staff are, at the very least, able to pencil in a target return date for the veteran. The good Lord knows that Milwaukee’s defense needs Crowder back as soon as humanly posisble.
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1 Comment
It’s NOT a setback by definition. HE had it in his head that the 8 week projection would be accurate and did the work, but anyone who has worked in this field (I have) knows that these are estimates. It’s taken slightly longer. Not much, as I’d bet he’s back next week since he IS doing 5 on 5 now (he could be back by the weekend if that goes well).
A setback is when you reinjure something or are unable to keep progression through the recovery protocol and have to take a COMPLETE break for a week or 10 days. Given that he said he’d met every one of their targets, he has had no setbacks.
They’re just playing it safer than that because he’s an AGING athlete like KM (who has benefitted greatly from the cautious approach).