Knicks' OG Anunoby out at least three weeks after undergoing elbow surgery
Knicks forward OG Anunoby looks on against the Heat in the first half of an NBA game at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
After two weeks of uncertainty, the Knicks announced Thursday night that OG Anunoby underwent a surgical procedure to remove a loose bone fragment from his right elbow and would be sidelined at least three weeks.
Anunoby was a late scratch January 29 in Charlotte with what the team called right elbow inflammation and he missed five games before Thursday with the condition updated to a bone spur on Wednesday.
“We tried to approach it with rest first, and then you trust the medical, you trust him, and this was the best course of action,” Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau said. “So, we're optimistic that it rolls into the All-Star break, so it seemed to make the most sense to all of us. So that's part of it. You deal with it and next guy get in there, get the job done.”
According to a team source, Anunoby is expected to be back doing basketball activities in three weeks and then will be re-evaluated. The original course of action was to rest and hopefully have the inflammation get better, but the determination was made that with the All-Star break providing an extra week in which he will not miss games.
The other part of this injury is whether he was already hurt when the Knicks traded for him on December 30. He has played in 14 games with the Knicks, and in his initial appearances with them, he was not wearing a sleeve or tape on the elbow as he was before shutting down.
“It’s hard to say when it exactly happened,” Thibodeau said. “Because it was the inflammation first and these things are not uncommon. Fifty games, most players are nicked up with something at this time of year. When it was inflammation, we thought we could get through it. And unfortunately that didn’t happen. You gather the information, you consult the experts and then you make a decision. So the process of what we did, I think, was really good. Obviously, OG is a big part of it. His agent is a big part of it. And then our medical team. So this was the best course of action for us.”
Parting words
Thibodeau was a vocal advocate for Quentin Grimes, who was traded Thursday, pushing for the team to draft him and inserting him in the starting lineup last season. But Grimes struggled with that role this season, moving to the bench for a better offensive opportunity.
“I loved having him,” Thibodeau said. “I thought he did a great job to come and play the way he did as a young player. He got into the rotation right away. It was much needed, the defense and the shooting. He’s a really good player, a good kid. He’s got a bright future. But in order to get what we wanted to get, we knew we had to give up something good. Which we did. I loved him as a guy, and as a player. And that’s part of the business.”
Josh Hart added on the loss of Ryan Arcidiacono, one of the four Villanova alums on the roster, “Obviously, I hate to see my guy Archy go. Obviously, you hate to see anybody go. Obviously, that’s our guy.”
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.
