Kristaps Porzingis Not Close to Return For Knicks, Still Rehabbing Torn ACL

The Knicks All-Star forward is still rehabbing a torn ACL in his left knee. The team has not put a timetable on his return.

Knicks' Kristaps Porzingis is still not close to returning from his torn ACL, president Steve Mills said Friday in a press conference, according to Newsday.

The team released a medical update later in the day and confirmed the Porzingis had been re-evaluated. The franchise's star forward is still rehabilitating his left knee after tearing his ACL on Feb. 6. The team said Porzingis will continue to rehab and be evaluated again in mid-February.

"The evaluation confirmed that Kristaps' knee is healing well, and he has made good progress with rehabilitation," the statement said. "Once he reaches the remaining rehab benchmarks, he will advance to on-court team drills and activities."

Kristaps Porzinigis Medical Update pic.twitter.com/RmyeLqGBoo

— NY_KnicksPR (@NY_KnicksPR) December 21, 2018

“We feel good about the progress, but we’re still a ways away and we’ll have to do another re-evaluation exactly where he is in mid-February,” Mills said during his press conference. “We’ll do another set of evaluations in mid-February to see exactly where he is, but there will be constant progressions in terms of activity and a lot of it will be how he feels. A big part of this process for us is we have to make sure that every step that he progresses to or steps that he feels comfortable in physically and our training staff and medical staff feel comfortable that we’re not putting him at any risk to move him forward."

Mills added that the team's priority is that Porzingis feels comfortable being back on the court. There is still no timetable on his return.

“I think we would like him to play and hope that he plays as soon as he’s comfortable playing,” Mills said. “One thing we’d like him to get on the court, we’d love to see him play, but we also acknowledge that he is a really, really important part of the long-term future of this franchise. And the one thing we’re not going to do is take any real risk with a 22-year-old player in his position."

Porzingis was averaging 22.9 points, 6.7 rebounds, 1.4 assists and a league-leading 2.4 blocks per game prior to his injury. He was voted to his first-ever All-Star game as a reserve last season.

The Knicks have posted a 9–24 record going into Friday’s home game against the Hawks.