While already suspected by many, frustrating confirmation nonetheless
A few weeks ago, fans got the unfortunate news that Mitchell Robinson would be out until December or January. Given that he is coming off foot surgery, is a big man, and has had a history of injuries, many suspected that his return would be closer to the latter than the former.
Today, those fears were confirmed as Sham Charania of ESPN revealed that Robinson would “miss the remainder of the calendar year”.
.@ShamsCharania revealed that Mitchell Robinson will miss the remainder of the calendar year while recovering from foot surgery.@stephenasmith couldn’t believe it pic.twitter.com/Mvy7ZpG7hf
— First Take (@FirstTake) October 10, 2024
Charania also added a few more tidbits about the team’s center situation, saying that New York remains “very high” on Jericho Sims and that Robinson playing center alongside Karl-Anthony Towns remains a possibility.
With fans previously speculating that Robinson would be out until January, this isn’t breaking news. But it does shed some light on just how far away he may be from returning. Were he to be making good progress, the Knicks, who have been pretty quiet when it comes to injuries, likely would have waited a bit longer to have news on his estimated return leaked. But with how early this was reported, and how conservative New York often is with injuries, there is now a possibility that Robinson won’t return until February, or god forbid March.
That brings up the question of what that would ultimately mean for both the Knicks and Robinson going forward.
The Knicks must have known this internally for a while now, but will it eventually lead to a harder push to acquire another center? Could it possibly mean that we’ve seen Robinson play his last game as a Knick? Those are questions we won’t know immediately.
But we do now know that Robinson won’t be on the court for a while, making the current center group of Towns, Sims, Precious Achiuwa, and Ariel Hukporti, a very intriguing one to keep an eye on.