Larry Kuzniewski
The Grizzlies have announced that Marc Gasol has undergone a successful surgery on his right mid-foot fracture:
Marc Gasol underwent successful surgery on Saturday, Feb. 20 to repair a non-displaced Type II fracture of the navicular bone in his right foot. Although Marc will not return to the court this season, he is expected to make a full recovery. The surgery was performed by foot and ankle specialists Dr. Robert Anderson of OrthoCarolina and Dr. Drew Murphy of Campbell Clinic.
Team sources I talked to explained that they’re pretty optimistic about Gasol’s recovery from this injury—that as long as he takes the rehab seriously and takes care of himself, it shouldn’t have any impact on the length of his career. A Type II fracture without displacement is a much better diagnosis than a Type III fracture, for instance, which means the navicular bone breaks all the way through. These sorts of injuries have afflicted other players who didn’t recover successfully from them, to be sure, but the Grizzlies are optimistic that the specifics of Marc’s injury mean he has a much higher likelihood of recovery than others.
It’s still a serious injury, and Gasol’s recovery will have to be taken just as seriously to make sure it doesn’t turn into some sort of inexorable slide into perpetual foot injuries. Clearly Gasol is out for the year, and my assumption would be that he isn’t playing for Spain in this summer’s Olympics, either, though that’s still just an assumption on my part. It sounds like their goal for a return is training camp, but clearly that’s not set in stone, and if he’s not ready by then, it’s in everyone’s best interests to wait as long as it takes.
On the court this season, how does it matter? In a way, this isn’t the worst thing that could happen for this season—as we’ve seen from the first two games of the Goon Squad era so far, playing without pressure but with a chip on their collective shoulder has always been good for these Grizzlies. Either way, we now have official confirmation that Gasol won’t be re-joining them until after this season is over, and that Gasol has a long road of rehab and recovery ahead of him before he gets back in a Grizzlies uniform.
You can read the full Grizzlies release—including a quote from Gasol—here at grizzlies.com.
