The Nets announced Thursday afternoon that Deron Williams is going to undergo surgery on both ankles Tuesday.
“He will have a bone chip removed from his right ankle, and the left ankle will have an arthroscopic cleanout with removal of spurs from both the front and back of the ankle,” Dr. Martin O’Malley, the Nets’ foot and ankle specialist, who will perform the surgery, said in a statement. “Deron is expected to make a full recovery.”
A timetable for Williams’ recovery is expected to be announced after the surgery is completed next week.
Williams had said last week he could undergo a minor procedure to “clean out” both ankles after having a scheduled MRI exam on both ankles last Friday, and then meeting with O’Malley on Monday.
While with the Nets, Vince Carter had a bone spur and loose bodies removed from his right ankle following the 2007-08 season — a procedure also performed by O’Malley — and was ready in time for the start of training camp the next season. He played 80 games and averaged more than 20 points, five rebounds and four assists that season, though the procedure Carter had was only on one ankle.
“What he’s [going to have] done is at the state of the art of what you would hope he’d have done in this situation,” said Dr. Andrew Brief, an orthopedic foot and ankle surgeon with the Ridgewood (N.J.) Orthopedic Group, who hasn’t examined Williams, “so he’s certainly been treated as well as he could be treated. He’s certainly getting the gold treatment.”
Williams, after spending the past two seasons dealing with ankle issues, undoubtedly will hope this marks the end of those woes, all of which have come since signing a five-year, $98 million contract to remain with the Nets in July 2012.
“I mean, I feel like I’ve kind of let people down, so I don’t like feeling like that,” Williams, 29, said last week. “I take my job serious, I work hard in the offseason, I work hard every day. It’s just real frustrating not to be able to play how I’m capable of playing.
“Both years have been tough on me. I just feel like I haven’t been able to play the way I want to since I’ve been here, really. And so it’s just been tough, it’s been tough to swallow, but hopefully I can figure things out and get back to playing like I want to play.”
After dealing with synovitis in both ankles throughout the 2012-13 season, leading him to get multiple rounds of cortisone shots as well as a round of platelet-rich plasma treatment that season, Williams bounced back to have a strong finish, and entered that offseason optimistic he had put his ankle woes behind him.
Instead, Williams — who averaged 14.3 points and 6.1 assists, both his lowest averages since his rookie year — sprained his right ankle during a preseason workout, forcing him to miss virtually the entire preseason. Then, after getting back on the floor for the preseason finale in Miami, Williams wound up spraining his left ankle three different times during the regular season, causing him to sit out 16 games and have another round of cortisone injections and PRP treatment.
He twisted the ankle again in Game 6 of the Nets’ first-round playoff series victory over the Raptors, getting a cortisone shot along with an anti-inflammatory before helping the Nets advance to face the Heat with a win in Toronto in Game 7.
“The bone spur itself is just a buildup of calcium. It’s a buildup of the bony tissue, and that’s causing the inflammation,” said Jeff Stotts, a certified athletic trainer who writes about NBA injuries for Rotowire.com, but who hasn’t had access to Williams or his medical records. “The bottom line is you’re taking out the root of the problem, if that is truly what is causing all this chronic inflammation.”
“I definitely can play better, I can shoot better than I did in the playoffs,” Williams said. “But it was tough. Definitely confidence-wise, I used to step on the court and feel like I was the best player no matter who played against, so I got to get back to that.”