5:10pm: Williams will undergo surgery on his injured knee, coach Ime Ukoda told Jared Weiss of The Athletic (Twitter link) and other media members. Williams will explore surgical options this week.
12:19pm: The Celtics have officially confirmed that Williams has a torn lateral meniscus in his left knee, announcing in a press release that they’ll provide an update later this week on his treatment and recovery.
10:51am: Celtics big man Robert Williams, who underwent further testing on his injured left knee today, has suffered a meniscus tear and will miss, at minimum, several weeks, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (via Twitter).
Shams Charania of The Athletic (Twitter link) was the first to report the team’s fear that Williams had torn the meniscus in his left knee. The 24-year-old sustained the injury on Sunday.
The treatment plan and recovery timeline for a meniscus tear varies from player to player, since the injury can be treated both surgically and non-surgically, depending on the severity — some players who suffer the injury are only sidelined for weeks, while others miss months. According to Wojnarowski, further evaluation on Williams today will help determine how long he’ll be sidelined.
With just two weeks left in the regular season, it’s possible we won’t see Williams again in 2021/22, especially if Boston doesn’t win a playoff series or two.
It’s a brutal turn of events for Williams and for the Celtics, who have looked like the Eastern Conference’s best team over the last couple months, winning 24 of their last 28 games.
The Celtics currently hold the No. 1 seed in the East and Williams has played a major role in their recent success, anchoring the NBA’s top-ranked defense and nearly averaging a double-double, with 10.0 PPG and 9.6 RPG on the season. He has shot an eye-popping 73.6% from the floor and emerged as a strong candidate for an All-Defensive nod.
With Williams sidelined, Boston will lean more heavily on Al Horford, Daniel Theis, and Grant Williams in the frontcourt. The team is signing forward Juwan Morgan to a 10-day contract using its open roster spot, but that deal will expire before the season ends, so that 15th spot could be used next week on a big man, if necessary.
Williams, who signed a rookie scale extension with the Celtics last fall, will be under contract for four years and $48MM (with another $6MM in incentives), beginning in 2022/23.
Damn.
Wow that sucks for for Celtics, he is having a tremendous season. The East is insane this year, it was looking like the Celtics were emerging as a favourite, now this.
The C’s got 1 option if they wanna overcome this setback & save their season… re-sign Joe Johnson, play him 30mins/gm & get the confetti ready
He is such a key part of their offense I’m not sure they can overcome. Only thing in their favor is how well they have meshed as a team, but this really hurts.
Just amazing. The same game they win to get them into first, they lose a guy probably for the year. I can’t believe the timing.. atleast they traded for theis…
Theis is pretty decent. However, he is a minimal/occasional offensive threat. Allows more defensive focus on the backcourt.
Shut up.
The biggest Celtics detractors, some anyway, have saw how they went from a sub .500 team start of Jan to number one in the East as of today, killing most teams with a recorde above them.
Time Lord out sux
Rank these talented former Celtic bigs in terms of who you’d rather have on your team if you could have them from age 19 until retirement, Kendrick Perkins, Robert Parish, Dino Radja, Robert Williams & Al Jefferson…
Bill Russell
Is this really that hard?
I mean…Parish played 21 seasons and is vastly better than these other dudes so he is number 1.
Williams has the potential to be better than the rest so 2, but who knows, as he could flame out hard.
3, Jefferson was a beast for much of his career.
4. Radja was underrated.
5. Perk…obviously.
Parish
Jefferson
Williams
Dino
Perk
Could flip flop Williams and Dino depending on how you feel about Williams’ trajectory given the amount of injuries he’s already had.
I don’t think I’m quite as high on Robert Williams as most people. I’d rather have Dino Radja tbh & I’d definitely rather have Big Al. Tbh I’d probably pick Al over Parish too. We def agree about Perk but I gotta say that Boston beats LA in that 2010 Finals if he wouldn’t have got hurt
Dude. You would pick Al Jefferson…over Parish. What?
“Hard” is not the point
You clearly don’t know shizzz about the Celtics if Dino Radja is on your list but you leave out Kevin McHale & Kevin Garnett…
Hurts so bad for us Celtics fans!
That what they said about Wiseman same injury and a year later he is still out.
Wiseman was a role bench player Timelord is a starter…
SMH dumb comment by you since he barely even played 20 games. If he was healthy he would have been their starter this year. Wasn’t Williams a back up last year.
Wiseman was a rookie last year the got hurt, ROBIII earned an unexpected role after proving himself for 3 or 4 years, terrible comparison.
Wiseman is proof that even smart drafting teams like GS can make mistakes.
Gives Bucks and Sixers better chance, good thing they brought This back.
This guy never stays healthy…
This appears tragic on the surface. The reality is that it shouldn’t hinder the Cs moving forward. In lass that two weeks, the Cs went from 17th in eFG% to tenth. Tatum has been on a tear from beyond the arc. Brown and White have shot better recently. Pritchard has been hitting on threes off the bench. Defensively, the Cs rank first in defensive eFG%. With or without Timelord, the Cs will only go as far as their 3pt shooting takes them.
Defense has been their key. If they give up points they may press (feel pressure), leading to missed 3s… so you’re not wrong.
Too bad, in the NBA “press” rarely means putting on a fullcourt press. Not even in college anymore.
I guess this answers the question many of us had a couple of years ago when we wondered if he could handle starter minutes. 61 games worth is the answer.
The Bucks lost a starter (DDVC) and still won it all last year. The C’s have depth at center so can they rearrange the deck chairs to make up for his loss?
Enes Freedom is probably checking his phone every 5 minutes.
“61 games worth is the answer”
Thanks, professor. Hard to argue with spurious data like that. I am sure he will play exactly 61 games every year as a starter you big genius you.
I guess you don’t go for the Captain Obvious shtick.
Wow is this the return of Freedom??
As a Sixers fan I’m happy
You’re a bigger clown than I thought.
I’m a clown cause the an opposing team got weaker and my team could benefit. Okay sure
no, you’re a clown because you are happy when players get injured.
Maybe Giannis will get in a car accident, or Jimmy Butler will get a concussion, or Tatums mom will die and he will have to take a few games off. Then you will really be thrilled.
Not wishing bad things on players. But it’s a professional sport and players get injured. They get paid millions for what they do. Wishing harm on them would be pretty low but when they do unfortunately get injured and it benefits your team then I would count that as a small win.
Think about it when KD and Klay went out injured for GSW in the finals yeah sure that sucks for them but I’m sure Cleveland fans were happy when they won. The fans don’t injure the players themselves it’s just apart of sport
Still…being respectful and not openly gloating about an injury is a good look possibly? Maybe? You think?
Toronto not Cleveland.
Maybe he’s happy by NZ standards… unsad? A lot of the Keltic there
You’re not going to be happy for long. Embiid has had back and foot problems going back to his days at Kansas. Now he’s got knee issues. Harden has durability issues as well. With the rigors of the playoffs, those two make for a shaky foundation.
Noooo! Not Boo Butt!
Luke Kornet: No sweat. I got this.
Although jojo is impossible to stop especially with the addition of the BEARD, losing a competitive center damages the celtics. Horford and a prayer against jojo .
Unless ur boi jojo is gonna put up 110, 120 pts its gonna be hard to win games when no one else on the team can score…
“losing a competitive center damages the Celtics”
There are some serious deep thinkers on this thread.
He’s a Sixers fan who believes in his team, of course he’s delusional
Irreplaceable! TimeLord does things no one else on the Celtics can do. Has skills no one else has. So we’re screwed for this year’s playoffs. We’ll just have to lower our expectations and plan to keep building our team for the future. Mesh better, etc. Playing together will hopefully take us pretty far. Go Celtics!
If this were 1992, I’d concur. As long as T and B can maintain a solid 3pt%, the Cs will beat anyone.
I hope you’re right but I don’t think you understand how vital TimeLord is to Celtics.
After seeing the way my guys pushed a healthy Raptors team to the limit without Tatum, Brown, Horford, and Williams, I feel way better about our chances.
Really?!?!?
I’ve always liked Toronto. That’s a team that could shock in the playoffs. That said, not a good showing.
Looking at all these posts, it’s as if many of you still think it’s 1992. Bigs aren’t as relevant in today’s NBA. The 3pt shot is king. The reason the Cs sucked in the 1st half and are the best team in the 2nd is the they shot poorly in 3s in the former and shot well in the latter. Look at Utah and Denver. They won’t win jack. Gobert’s elite D and Jokic’s pretty stats mean nothing. It’s all about 3pt shooting. When Curry was healthy, GS was nearly on top with Kevin Looney at C. The Suns won’t give Ayton the rookie max. Double Double guys aren’t hard to find.
3 point shooting is queen while scoring within 10 feet is king. Expected value of a 3 pt shot is 1.05 pts while that of shots taken within 10 ft of the hoop is 1.12 pts. It is a balance of inside and 3 pt. 44% of all shots the season come from inside 10 ft and 40% are 3 ptrs. A team that shot all 3s would not win the NBA crown. A team has to be threatening both inside and from 3 while also being able to take away 1 or both of these things from the opponent (which is called defense).
Rbt Williams starts as a 4, not a 5 (Horford is), and plays about half his game on the wing per Bas.Ref.
For the purposes of this key part of the game, establishing a defensive tone, Grant W should be able to replicate Robert W… so Celts a threat by being able to keep it going.
True, Grant’s PER is only about half of Robert’s and he is less of a rim protector, so they may fade late. But this is their only major-player injury?
BTW a double-double is 10-10 not 10.0-10.0. To average a 10.0-9.6 as RbtW has, IS a double-double. It’s a math thing, rounding off.