Gordon Hayward is itching to return to the basketball court.
The Boston Celtics forward wasted no time in his rehab process after suffering a horrific ankle, lower-leg injury five minutes into opening night Oct. 17. In fact, Hayward even asked for a basketball the day before undergoing surgery.
Hayward has made promising steps in his post-surgery recovery. The 27-year-old has kept his shooting form sharp by getting shots up from a chair, and a recent photo revealed he’d ditched his walking boot.
Boston is expected to be without Hayward for the duration of the 2017-18 campaign, and Hayward himself has acknowledged that a return to action is unlikely. But no official ruling has been made on the new Celtics star, and as the saying goes, “never say never.”
“It’s definitely in the back of my mind,” Hayward told The Boston Globe’s Adam Himmelsbach. “I’m definitely pushing to get back as fast as I can, while making sure that I still have a lot of good years of basketball in me. And coming back early and hurting something else is not part of that plan. So I’m making sure that if I come back, I’m one-thousand percent confident in myself and my leg. I hope more than anything I can play this season. That would be awesome. But that’s not something I’m stressing about. I’m stressing about what I can do today to help myself get better.”
The C’s have exceeded expectations in Hayward’s absence. The green currently own the NBA’s second-best record at 22-5, and they’re expected to be one of the leading contenders to represent the Eastern Conference in the NBA Finals this season. If Hayward somehow is able to return for the postseason, Boston’s case for a championship would become even more convincing.
