Jayden Quaintance and injuries have unfortunately gone hand in hand in recent years. Now, Quaintance is coming off a successful surgery to clean up his right knee, and is a little over a year removed from his ACL surgery.
The San Antonio Spurs announced the positive news on Wednesday.
Quaintance went through extensive rehab before, during, and after his commitment to Kentucky Basketball. Big Blue Nation knows all too well about the process to get him back last year, with the highly anticipated superstar
going through a ton to get back.
Now, in the NBA, he is still going through some difficulties in getting back to game-ready. The Spurs drafted Quaintance No. 20 overall, and they knew that with that pick, another surgery would come in the near future. The Spurs, of anyone, could afford that, though. The Spurs are coming off a year in which they reached the NBA Finals, and have a super young team overall.
When Quaintance was drafted, Spurs fans who didn’t know him or his story were extremely excited about the selection after seeing the highlights. When Quaintance is healthy and honestly just playing on the court, he makes an unbelievable impact on the game.
Back in high school, Quaintance was a 5-star prospect and one of the best defensive prospects we had seen in recent years. Then, in college, his game translated right away. At Arizona State, he averaged 9.4 points per game, 7.9 rebounds per game and 3.7 stocks (steals and blocks) per game. The end of his freshman season at Arizona State and his year at Kentucky have been riddled with injuries, setting him back.
Sadly, more rehab is in store for Quaintance, but as I mentioned before, there’s not a ton of weight on his shoulders of expectations for him to come in and save an organization or anything like that.
Best wishes to Quaintance as we hope for a speedy recovery.
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