Jimmy Butler has ‘meniscal injury’, return timetable unknown

An MRI taken on Saturday in Minneapolis revealed a “meniscal injury” in Timberwolves All-Star Jimmy Butler‘s right knee. The team has yet to announce any further details regarding treatment or timeline.

Say it with me, Minnesota, in the most Minnesotan way possible: “Well, it could have been worse.”

Jimmy Butler does not have a torn ACL, which would have required something north of a 12-month timeline for surgery, recovery, and return to the court. Instead, he has what the team is terming a ‘meniscal injury’.

If you think that sounds vague, well, you’d be correct. There are any number of possibilites regarding how Butler and the team might choose to treat the injury, which will of course affect the timeline of his return to the floor.

Here’s the press release from the team:

Let’s get the obvious reaction out of the way: this injury is better than an ACL tear, no matter how you want to slice it. If he had been out until next March or April, the team would have struggled to make the postseason this year and been far behind the 8-ball next year, too.

Add in that Butler will be a free agent next summer, and there are all kinds of complications with an injury such as that.

On the other hand, let’s not be celebrating the fact that this is “just” a meniscus injury. While we don’t know yet if it’s even torn (virtually any injury to the meniscus would be some form of a tear, but it could vary from Grade I to Grade III), there are rest-and-recovery options for treatment as well as different forms of surgery, which even range from repair to removal.

Here’s our friend Lucas Seehafer from A Wolf Among Wolves, who knows a thing or two about injuries.

The cynic in me recalls that a meniscus injury suffered by Chase Budinger in 2012 (somewhat ironically, against the Bulls) was more or less the beginning of the end for Budinger’s career.

First, there was the initial injury, which did require surgery. He missed four months and only played in 17 games after the injury, which occurred in the sixth game of the season. Then, Budinger re-injured the knee preparing for the 2013-14 season. He underwent surgery in early October and didn’t play again until Jan. 8, appearing in just 41 games for Minnesota. According to the above-linked article, this surgery included at least a partial removal of the cartilage, and it’s not out of the question that the entire meniscus was removed.

The once-promising role player, who was coming off a 2011-12 season with the Rockets in which he shot 40.2 percent from beyond the arc only shot 33.5 percent from 3-point range over the final four years of his career. After averaging 9.6 points in 21.6 minutes per game in the first fours seasons of his career, Budinger averaged only 5.8 points in 17 minutes per game after the initial injury.

Budinger never appeared to regain the same athleticism or confidence that he had previously, and the former high school dunk contest runner-up last played in the NBA during his age-27 season in 2015-16. He spent the 2016-17 season overseas but has not played yet this year.

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Budinger is a cautionary tale, of course, and we have no clue if this injury is as bad as Chase’s. But while we can all be thankful that this injury wasn’t as bad as it initially appeared, a meniscus injury isn’t a walk in the park, either.