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WALTHAM, Mass. – There was a Vitor Faverani sighting Saturday afternoon at the Boston Celtics practice facility.
Faverani has been missing in action since training camp, when he was shut down due to swelling in his surgically repaired left knee. Faverani had torn the meniscus in that knee last season and underwent surgery on March 7 to repair the injury.
When swelling did not subside during training camp, the team believed another procedure was necessary. Faverani again went under the knife on Oct. 13 in Spain, a procedure that cleaned up inflammation in the knee. His life-long doctor performed the surgery.
“I just decided to do it with [my doctor],” Faverani explained on Saturday. “He’s (been) my doctor for all of my life, so I’m more comfortable with him.”
Faverani said that he feels “100 percent better” than he did prior to that surgery but also explained that he is still very limited in what he can do on the knee.
“I can’t do anything on the court now,” he said. “So I work in the pool a lot, I work in the gym (and on the bike). That’s what I can do now.”
It was originally estimated by the team that Faverani would miss six to eight weeks after the surgery. We’re nearly at the end of that time frame now, but it sounds as if the big man is quite a ways away from making an appearance in a Celtics uniform.
He stated that no updated time frames for a possible return have been discussed with team doctors. Faverani and the team do not want to rush him back and have him suffer a setback as he did during training camp.
“My knee’s looking very nice. I’ve recovered my muscles in my leg,” Faverani stated. “We’re just taking time to jump on the court. I don’t want the same thing to happen again, to work and then get back to playing before I can. I don’t want to injure it again.”
The next step in Faverani’s recovery, according to the big man, is to begin running on the AlterG machine. The AlterG is an anti-gravity treadmill that allows rehabbing players to run on only a percentage of their body weight. Faverani says that he could take that step as early as next week.
Use of the AlterG is typically the first major step on a long path toward returning to the court. With that in mind, no one should expect to see Faverani playing anytime soon. That, however, doesn’t take away the positives from Saturday’s media availability.
Faverani finally showed face, which is a great sign. He looks happy, he says he feels good, and he believes his knee is trending in the right direction. That’s quite a bit of progress from where he was just seven weeks ago.