Jaylen Brown undergoes surgery to clean up torn meniscus

The Boston Celtics announced on Wednesday that Jaylen Brown "underwent a successful right knee arthroscopic debridement procedure. He is expected to participate in training camp without limitation."

News of the partial tear in the right meniscus broke just after the Celtics' loss to the Knicks in the second round of the playoffs. Brown had been playing with pain in the right knee for months, getting shots towards the end of the season to manage the pain. 

"That’s been something that he’s had for a while and it’s been stable," Brad Stevens said during his season-ending press conference a few weeks ago. "That’s been several scans through and through. So we’ve known that for a long time and he’s known that for a long time.”

Brown had two surgical options to deal with the tear: a repair of the meniscus or cutting the torn portion away. Recovery from a repair of the meniscus takes months because there is little blood flow to that area to aid in the recovery. Cutting the torn portion away, also known as "debridement," can have a player back on the court in weeks. 

The downside is that there are only so many debridement procedures that can be done on a meniscus. The meniscus is a piece of cartilage that is a sort of cushion or shock absorber in the knee. Cutting some of it away means there's less padding there for later. It's fine for someone like Brown, who is undergoing his first such procedure, but it does make for tougher decisions should this injury happen again. Cut away too much and there's a risk of athritis later in life. 

Doing the surgery now means Brown will still be able to go through is normal summer workouts. Ramping up in July and August shouldn't be a problem after a debridement in early June.

Having a healthy Brown to start camp is an important element to keeping the Celtics in contention in the East. Stevens will certainly make moves this summer to change the roster, but knowing Brown will be healthy and ready to go to start the season gives the Celtics some comfort that they can manage the early part of the season as Jayson Tatum goes through his Achilles surgery recovery. 

The Celtics can get close to, or just under, the second apron line this summer and then wait to see how Tatum is recovering and how the Celtics are looking before determining their next step. If a healthy Brown and the remaining Celtics can hang around the top of the conference, and if Tatum's recovery is putting him on track for an in-season return, then they might push further moves off until next summer. Or maybe they shift from major moves at the deadline to a minor one in order to preserve their chances to contend one more year. 

Starting the season without Tatum or Brown would have put Boston in a much different position. At least for now, the Celtics still have the option of trying to milk one more year of contention out of this group.