Patrick Beverley doesn’t care about your stupid injury-recovery timelines. To him, they’re suggestive more than anything else. He exists only to beat them.
And, apparently, to hint at shattering them on Twitter:
Great. Getting my range back. Super excited. Might pop up early. #Wolverine https://t.co/voOxswmUdK
— Patrick Beverley (@patbev21) December 6, 2017
Sign yours truly up for an early Beverley return. He’s super feisty, and thus fun to watch, on defense. The extracurricular jibber-jabbering he engages in, often with star players, also carries a refreshingly pleasant vengefulness to it.
Plus, you know, the Los Angeles Clippers need him. They just got Danilo Gallinari back from a glute injury, will be playing without Blake Griffin for at least the next month-and-a-half and don’t have a definitive timeline for Milos Teodosic’s return from a plantar fascia injury. Their season, meanwhile, is slinking toward the doldrums—and fast. They’re 4-15 over their past 19 games and now five wins off the Western Conference’s eight-seed. DeAndre Jordan trade speculation has reached fever pitch as a result.
All of which points to a certain futility in Beverley’s apparent quest. He is supposed to be out for the season following surgery to repair a microfracture and torn meniscus in his right knee, so he won’t be returning anytime soon even if he does demolish the initial timeline. If he comes back this year, it’ll likely be at the end of the schedule, when the Clippers’ playoff hopes are long since dead and gone.
Even if he could return next week, or next month, it wouldn’t make much sense. He turns 29 in July, and his salary for 2018-19 is non-guaranteed. He shouldn’t do anything to jeopardize his contract status for next year—or, equally important, beyond—just so he can try helping out a team that, as of now, looks too far gone. He’s better off biding his time, rehabbing into the offseason and coming back next year at full strength—either for the Clippers, or for whatever team they trade him to over the summer should they steer into a teardown.
