Boston Celtics: An optimist’s guide to Jaylen Brown’s injury (and others)

The Boston Celtics have had terrible luck with injuries this year, but they still look primed and ready to compete in the playoffs.

The Boston Celtics have had more than their share of back luck with injuries in an injury-ridden season for the NBA. After a monster fast break jam, Jaylen Brown landed on his head and reminded everybody of what it felt like to watch Gordon Hayward‘s leg explode on national television.

This comes during a week that had more ominous reports on Kyrie Irving‘s knee, and yet another video of Hayward doing whatever it is you do to recover from an exploded leg. While teams gear up for the playoffs (or tanking), the Celtics will likely be more focused on physical health than playoff seeding, and that’s not a bad thing.

There is a disturbingly low amount of optimism in Celtics world for a team that is 46-20. This week reignited the civil war between football geek radio hosts and “weird Celtics Twitter” being fought over whether or not Al Horford is actually good at basketball — which is a spectacle for its own reasons, not to mention that among all the injuries, struggles, and picture frame punching, Horford has somehow emerged as the most controversial Celtic of the past month.

This is a good omen disguised as a stupid argument — none of the injuries are actually bad enough to take precedence over the usual bickering. On a case-by-case basis, things still look great for Boston in the long-term.

First bit of good news: Brown walked off on his own after taking a terrible fall and landing on his head. Second bit of good news: The NBA is not the NFL.

There’s a lot of buzz about treating head trauma in the sports world after the NFL routinely mistreats (or doesn’t treat) concussion symptoms. The NBA’s concussion protocol requires players to be completely symptom-free at rest before moving to the next step, where they have to show they can withstand physical exertion without symptoms coming back.

Brown once passed on the Slam Dunk Contest after Gerald Green cautioned him against it. I’m sure he’ll take notice of Horford being extra cautious about concussions before coming back.

Next are Kyrie Irving’s spooky knee problems. It was reported that Irving threatened to have surgery sooner rather than later in order to pressure the Cleveland Cavaliers into respecting his request to be traded. The latest quote by Danny Ainge has people worrying again if Irving will be slowed down by his knee in the playoffs:

Based on those stories, the severity of Irving’s injury lies somewhere between “holding the Cavaliers hostage” and “will need maintenance from time to time.”

Remember when we were waiting for the Irving trade to go through because of Isaiah Thomas‘ physical? The Celtics ended up throwing in an extra pick to get the deal done because his injury was the only one that mattered enough to change anything.

The story about Irving threatening surgery hadn’t gone public by that point, but the Celtics knew that Irving had knee problems in 2015 and clearly weren’t concerned enough about it to almost sabotage their own trade.

Finally, the worst-kept secret in sports. While Ainge has done his best to lower our expectations, Gordon Hayward himself has done just as much to leave us in a state of cautious optimism.

Hayward’s injury was never actually confirmed to be season-ending because the Celtics like to be hush-hush about injuries when they can, but it’s been sort of an open secret that Hayward could realistically return this year.

Back in October, we learned from former Celtic Shavlik Randolph that it’s an injury that can heal in 4-6 months, and, by my calculations, Hayward got hurt about five months ago. The season ends on April 11, which is a few days short of six full months since the injury. If the Celtics make the second round of the playoffs, it wouldn’t be beyond reason that Hayward sees the floor on a minutes restriction.

Next: 2017-18 Week 21 NBA Power Rankings

Better yet, let’s just abandon dunking the ball altogether and lay the ball in gently like civilized adults.