So we actually didn't record this part originally, but now we're going to throw it on there because the news came down during the day today after we had recorded that Kyry Irving will miss the remainder of the season and the playoffs now a projected recovery time of four to five months.

He will undergo a procedure to remove two screws implanted in his left patella after the patella fracture he suffered during the NBA finals in 2015.

This is reading the Celtic statement here and he had this procedure in March to remove attention wire and at that point it was revealed that the screws had an infection at that site and that was part of why he was having so difficulties.

So they're going to have to remove these screws now and the good news because there always has to be some good news in these press releases.

So I still remember the last good news was that it was minimally invasive. The good news is that there's no issue with the fractures patella. I guess that would mean that he doesn't need the screws anymore if that was there to help it heal initially and the knee remains structurally sound.

So four to five months is the timeline. So we're talking about even something that could bleed into training camp. You have to imagine you're ready to start next year, but he could be limited at the start of training camp as well.

So I'm not going to really be able to train the way he usually would in the off season, but just start with what this means for these playoffs. It was always looking pretty grim with that three to six week timeline and having someone come back from surgery.

But now I mean the Celtics chances I think of getting at least the East finals. I don't think they ever felt that great about getting to the I mean, I guess if they had home court, maybe they felt like they couldn't want a series against Cleveland. I disagree.

But in any event, now it's looking pretty grim for them. It is. And this is disperting in the near term, just because Kyrie has been so good this year. And we have I have no idea how long he's been dealing with this kind of thing with the bacterial infection. Maybe he'll talk about that.

Some point maybe he won't that's the nature of these sorts of ways and the media will be a hit of violation. Well, no, I'm saying whether he would. Yeah, no, no, I would not be happy to make that joke.

Don't don't actually like good. It's not going to hold up to any kind of scrutiny or accuracy here. Come on. In other ways, we try to. But the but so it is it is disappointing. And KP wrote a good piece today for insider talking about what this means for the Celtics that they will still be competitive.

He thinks they'll be favored in their first round series. I'm a little bit more skeptical about it because they can't really ratchet up the minutes as much for their best guys because two of the best players are injured and we don't know what's happening with Marcus smart. They still execute as a team. They still defend well enough and they'll defend probably better now than they did before with Terry Rosier in the starting lineup, depending on what happens with Marcus smart.

But their offense is going to be really inconsistent and remember that Kyrie Irving has been such a central part of a lot of their clutch success, especially through most of the year. They've still been they've still played a lot of good games without him. But as things ratchet up as you know teams play their best players, a lot of much higher proportion of the game.

They will certainly be in that series. I'm going to wait until I see who they're playing to say whether they're favored or not. But the other silver lining is this was never to me going to be their season next year. Maybe the Raptor and who knows they have enough assets they could trade for somebody even better than the guys they have right now or development of Tatum and Brown and all that. So getting those guys experience and they're going to have the ball in their hands a whole heck of a lot now that maybe that'll be valuable moving forward. I don't exactly know.

But I think there are things that they will be able to take away from this that they couldn't have before.

Yeah, certainly they'll have a lot of confidence as an organization.

Bright Steven stars risen even further. They're not going to have cap space in the foreseeable future. But as a place where a star player might want to go and sign an extension, that's good.

I mean, the bad news is with Kyrie not really going to be able to work on his game too much. This is now will be the second off season that Hill have essentially missed due to this knee issue.

And hopefully that won't be something that affects his career going forward.

And then as far as the playoffs, yeah, I could easily see them being favored depending on who they play because their defense is going to be awesome.

Their defense is even better without Kyrie when they clearly have if not the best probably the second best defense in the NBA behind the jazz.

Maybe if the Warriors can get to that level if they really ratchet it up to postseason intensity.

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