Knicks' Mitchell Robinson wants to be 100% when he returns to action
Knicks center Mitchell Robinson looks on against the Nets in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on April 12, 2024. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
INDIANAPOLIS — The images have been a tease. Mitchell Robinson on the practice court or in the weight room, showing off his progress as he made his way through a seemingly endless rehabilitation process.
And even to the end of his long media blackout and absence on the court, he still was teasing and being teased. Robinson posted a photo Tuesday morning on his Instagram account of him running in the Knicks training facility with OG Anunoby. And it may have been a joke, but it still stings with reality when former Knick Trevor Keels commented, “Bro, do you still play basketball?’
“That’s their business,” Robinson said of the doubters. “Let them sleep and I’ll wake their [butts] up.”
It’s an understandable question, even if it was a joke. It’s been nearly nine months since he last appeared in a game and he still has yet to be cleared. He has been working through setbacks and uncertainty, as well as finding his name in trade rumors, not to mention the Knicks trading for Karl-Anthony Towns and inserting him at center in his absence.
Robinson stepped into a backroom at Gainbridge Field House before Tuesday’s game, shirtless after a workout, and spoke to the Knicks’ traveling media for the first time since April 25, the day that he was injured in Philadelphia. He has rejoined the team in practice in recent days for the first time this season, finally getting cleared for contact by the medical staff. But even now he has yet to up his contact work to five-on-five, the final step before he can be cleared for game action.
“I mean I’m just taking it day by day, the best that I can,” Robinson said. “Just continue to get to 100%. That’s my main goal. I’m going to just do whatever it takes to get there and I don’t have to have this happen again.
“It is very frustrating. Not getting out there to be able to do what you love to do for a living. It’s been hard. I’m maintaining, trying to stay focused best as I can.”
He would not revisit the injuries, speculating on whether Joel Embiid pulling him to the floor or colliding with him in Philadelphia in the playoffs was the cause of the shutdown and second surgical procedure. But he dismissed notions of setbacks or road back this time. Instead, he insisted it was a desire to finally heal the right way.
“Just taking my time,” he said. “I want to make sure it’s 100%. I ain’t trying to keep having these sit outs and setbacks and stuff like that. This time I’m just going to play it smart. Usually I’d be young and dumb to go out there and try to get back as fast as I can. I can’t do that no more.”
Asked to clarify what he meant by young and dumb he said, “Make dumb decisions like nutrition-wise. [I want to] make sure I take care of my body the right way. After a game, I don’t ice. That’s part of learning and growing. I’m just going to focus to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
Robinson was off to a solid start last season when he suffered a fracture to his left ankle on Dec. 8, 2023, in Boston. He underwent surgery days later and was sidelined for 50 games before returning to play in eight of the final nine games of the regular season.
“Right in the beginning before it happened, in December,” Robinson said, “I think I was playing the best basketball of my career. The game was really slow to me. I could see everything.”
Asked if he had rushed back prematurely to join the Knicks for the playoffs he said, “Honestly, I don’t know how to answer that question, it was just like trying to get out there, do what I got to do.”
Robinson then made it through six playoff games, five against Philadelphia where he injured the ankle again in a collision with Embiid. He then played one more against the Pacers before shutting down and undergoing another surgery on May 13 for what the team called, “a small procedure.”
At the time, the Knicks placed a timetable of six to eight weeks for Robinson to be reevaluated. But shortly before training camp team sources said that he would target a December or January return to game action.
“Just step by step,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “He looks good. So it’s just taking the contact, seeing how he responds the next day.”
Before the Boston game when he originally suffered the injury in the first 20 games of the season he was averaging 10.4 rebounds per game, including an NBA-leading 5.4 offensive rebounds.
The trade talk is a particularly sensitive one since Robinson is the longest-tenured Knicks player. And it’s not even close with Deuce McBride arriving three years later. Robinson has one year left on his contract after this, a $12.9 million guarantee. Ideally, he would serve as the exact sort of player the Knicks were searching for at the trade deadline. He would be a rim-protecting center who could serve as a backup for Towns and also play alongside him in the same role Rudy Gobert did for Towns in Minnesota.
“You know how people are,” Robinson said. “They keep telling me and it is what it is. It’s a business. I’m not going to cry about it . . . I’m just going with the flow. Whatever happens, happens.”
Steve Popper covers the Knicks for Newsday. He has spent nearly three decades covering the Knicks and the NBA, along with just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
