After battling through injury to help the Boston Celtics win their 18th championship, Kristaps Porzingis' full focus this summer will be on recovery.
The Boston Celtics big man will have surgery "in the coming days" to repair a torn retinaculum and dislocated posterior tibialis tendon from the left leg injury he suffered in Game 2 of the 2024 NBA Finals, the team announced Tuesday.
The Celtics also confirmed Porzingis won't play for his native Latvia in the 2024 Olympics in Paris, noting that the 7-foot-2 big man "had hoped to delay surgery until after both the NBA Finals and Latvia's Olympic campaign, but the injury doesn't allow for consistent play at the level required for Olympic competition."
Porzingis missing the Olympics comes as no surprise after he confirmed he'd need surgery in the aftermath of Game 5 of the 2024 NBA Finals and revealed he'd likely miss "a few months." The team expects to have a clearer timeline for Porzingis' recovery after he has surgery, president of basketball operations Brad Stevens said Tuesday.
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"Kristaps is still in the middle of consulting with some different doctors and specialists, but we anticipate surgery will be soon, and then we'll have more of an update for timeline of recovery after the surgery," Stevens told reporters in his end-of-season press conference.
Expect Boston to proceed with caution with the 28-year-old big man, who appeared in 57 of the Celtics' 82 games during the regular season and missed 10 straight postseason games with a strained right calf before sitting out Games 3 and 4 of the NBA Finals with the left leg injury.
The C's went 21-4 in the regular season and 10-2 in the playoffs with Porzingis sidelined, so while he's absolutely a game-changer on both ends when healthy, Boston has proven it can stay afloat when he's hurt.
Check out Stevens' full press conference in the YouTube video below.
