Starting with a Sahvir Wheeler concussion. Then a TyTy Washington ankle injury. Then a Jacob Toppin ankle injury. Then a Wheeler wrist injury. Then another TyTy ankle injury.
You get the point. Starting with the Auburn game, Kentucky endured injury after injury. However, there is another to add to the list that was never made well-known.
In an interview with The Athletic’s Kyle Tucker, Kellan Grady opened up about an injury that he suffered from the summer up to now.
Starting in June of 2021, Kellan Grady began to develop a case of plantar fasciitis in both feet. Simply put, this is the inflammation of the ligament that attaches from the heel to the front of the foot, effectively acting as a shock absorber.
The most effective treatment for plantar fasciitis is rest, but in order to prepare for the season, Grady refused and downplayed it.
As the season progressed, the injury and the associated pain worsened, with Grady telling Tucker, “The morning after games, I would be almost crawling to the bathroom to take a piss.”
Grady logged more minutes than any other Kentucky Wildcat this season, and without knowledge of the injury, people never questioned it. Now that we know, why did Grady play so much if the pain was so severe?
“Thankfully I played a lot of minutes, because if I didn’t, I don’t think I would’ve been able to play at all this year. With plantar fasciitis, inactivity and after activity are the worst things.”
With that being said, Grady does not want to use the injury as an excuse for his poor play down the stretch, saying, “I was able to play through it all year, so that’s why at the end of the year I wasn’t going to say my feet were hurting when I played poorly. I didn’t want to blame that.”
Rather, Grady attributes his play to a slump, “People go through slumps. It happens. It just sucks that it happened for me at pivotal moments down the stretch for us.”
Since the season ended, Grady has visited Dr. Martin O’Malley, a renowned orthopedic specialist in New York known for treating a number of NBA players and notably performed Kevin Durant’s surgery to repair his Achilles tendon.
Dr. O’Malley was surprised that Grady had endured the pain for so long. “He said he’s almost never seen it for this period of time in both feet. He said he didn’t know how I played this year on those feet,” explained Grady.
Per doctor’s orders, Grady has been undergoing shockwave therapy, platelet-rich plasma (PRP), and resting to promote recovery. When Grady says resting, he did not touch a basketball for two and a half weeks.
However, Grady will not get the suggested amount of rest as he will soon be preparing for the NBA Draft.
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