DeMarre Carroll doesn’t like to be on the sidelines. Watching his teammates hit the floor while he is stuck at home, relegated to calling out instructions and encouragement from his couch isn’t how he likes to do things, so if he can suit up, he’s going to play. After toughing it out for much of the first half of the season, Carroll eventually underwent arthroscopic surgery on his right knee on Jan 6th. Speaking to the media prior to Toronto’s game against the Brooklyn Nets on Monday for the first time since the injury, Carroll revealed that he first hurt his knee in a game against the New Orleans Pelicans on Dec 11, but shook it off and continued to play through it.
“I never said anything about it,” Carroll said. “And then we went to play the Clippers and DeAndre Jordan kind of kneed me, and I think that was the last straw. That’s when I knew.
“But I tried to play through it for a long time,” he continued. “I sat out for three weeks and eventually we went to the doctor and he was like, ‘Whoa, we need to get something done.’ So I just feel happy that I did get something done at the right time.”
Although Carroll didn’t give out any specific return timelines, he did say he is pleased with his progress and is ahead of schedule. Describing the surgery as “cleaning some stuff up,” Carroll said there weren’t any issues with his “meniscus or anything of that nature” and that it was better to get the surgery done sooner than later.
“They just went in and cleaned some stuff up,” Carroll said. “I had a lot of inflammation. I was playing with a lot of inflammation in my knee for a long period of time and [the doctor] was kind of surprised I hadn’t done it sooner. At the same time, I tried to fight through it.”
Although it’s been tough to be away from his teammates and unable to compete, Carroll’s recovery time at home became a little more interesting when he and his wife welcomed their second child, a son, last week. Carroll said everyone in his household has been getting less sleep since the new arrival, but beamed proudly as he described watching Raptors games on the couch while holding his son in one arm and his two-year-old daughter in the other.
No player wants to undergo surgery, but Carroll’s recovery time is giving his body time to heal from various ailments that have plagued him since coming to Toronto.
“[The time off] absolutely [helps the other injuries], especially my plantar fasciitis,” Carroll said. “It’s kind of like a blessing in disguise for me. I feel like now, my feet are feeling better. I think my body is just healing and I think this is a blessing in disguise, but at the same time I am just ready to get out there and I feel like my team has done a really good job and I’ve just gotta keep motivating from the side. Whenever I can get out there, I gotta just take this team to a whole other level.”