Kyrie Irving Talks About Knee Infection, Will Be Ready For Training Camp

Kyrie Irving is glad to have left the knee infection, that cut short his 2017-18 season, behind him and begin proper rehabilitation as he prepares for the new campaign with the Boston Celtics. He is confident he will be ready well before the training camp commences later in the year.

The Celtics point guard suffered an infection in his left knee in the latter part of the regular season and was subsequently ruled out for the rest of the campaign. He impressed in his debut campaign helping his new franchise finish as the second seeds in the Eastern Conference.

Irving had to undergo a minor surgery to remove the wires and screws that were inserted in 2015 and revealed that it was the foreign objects inserted that caused the infection. He was relieved to have come out of it unscathed but admitted that the recovery process was a “long two months”.

“What happened for me was, the metal wiring and the screws that I had in there, the infection was on that, so I had to remove that and then be on antibiotics for about two months,” Irving said, as per ESPN. "It could have evolved to staph, but good thing we caught it early. I am glad that is done. That was a long, long f------ two months."

According to ESPN, Irving has been back on the court now for a few months, but is yet to be cleared for five-on-five action. He took part in one-on-one drills with his trainer on Thursday and is slowly but surely on his way to being fully fit.

"For the last two months, it was a long, rigorous process, trying to get that infection out and make sure I was safe," the 2015 NBA Championship winner added. "And then rehabbing from there. So I have been rehabbing probably for the last month and some change where I can actually do something without much restrictions."

The five-time All-Star missed the final few games of the regular season and had to watch from the bench as a young Celtics team made it all the way to Game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals before losing to LeBron James-led Cleveland Cavaliers — his former team.

The point guard admitted that he is eager to see how the entire Celtics team will come together including Gordon Hayward, who has played just five minutes with the Celtics since joining them last summer. He suffered a season ending ankle injury just five minutes into their opening game of the campaign in Cleveland.

“Nothing but excited to lead that group. I mean, we haven't started [yet, so] everyone is zero-zero right now. ... The most important thing right now is finding our cohesion," Irving said. "So finding that [cohesion] is going to be a process, which I am looking forward to doing with Danny [Ainge], Brad [Stevens], everybody."