Milwaukee Bucks all-star Khris Middleton had right knee surgery after NBA playoffs
Three-time all-star Khris Middleton had a procedure on his right knee shortly after the Milwaukee Bucks’ season ended, league sources told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
He is expected to begin court work in July.
It is the same knee he suffered a torn meniscus in during his junior year at Texas A&M in the fall of 2011, which forced him to miss two months of action and ultimately played a role in falling to Detroit in the second round of the 2012 draft.
The knee was still bothering him when Milwaukee acquired him in a trade in the summer of 2013, but the medical and coaching staffs then created a treatment plan to get him in a place to maximize his ability. He played all 82 games in his first year in Milwaukee in 2013-14 and played at least 77 games in five of his next seasons, the only exception being 2016-17 when he suffered a torn hamstring and played in 29.
Middleton felt discomfort in his right knee shortly after his return from offseason wrist surgery, pulling himself out of a game early against Houston on Dec. 11. Though he was also managing blistering on his feet at the time, the team shut him down to rehabilitate the knee after he played about 22 minutes against Memphis on Dec. 15, a game where he was 1 for 12 from the field.
He missed the next 18 games before returning off the bench to play 15 minutes in Detroit on Jan. 23. His return helped spark a 16-game winning streak in which he came off the bench and gradually had his minutes increased.
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Middleton returned to the starting lineup and a roughly 30-minutes per game workload on March 7 and over his next 11 games (he sat out one game of back-to-backs) he looked like his usual self on offense in averaging 19.9 points per game on 47% shooting to go with 7.0 assists and 4.8 rebounds.
He reinjured the knee, however, against Chicago on April 5. He did receive an MRI on the knee afterward, and after missing the final two regular-season games he returned for the playoffs against Miami.
In the five-game series, Middleton played 34.6 minutes per game and averaged 23.8 points per game on 46.5% shooting, including a 40.6% mark from behind the three-point line. He also averaged 6.4 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Bucks all-star Khris Middleton had right knee surgery after playoffs
