Top 5 active NBA players who bounced back following an ACL tear
Recovery from an injury is always tough and it takes a lot from a player to bounce back and make their way back into competing at the highest level. An ACL tear- is one such injury that takes a long time to recover from. The severity of an ACL tear differs from case to case and it could be different for each person.
However, healing would normally take somewhere around 6-12 months. Sometimes the player is never the same after an ACL injury. However, there are also examples of a few hoopers that have overcome an ACL injury and made their way to the league. In today's article, we focus on five such players that made their way into the league despite career-altering injuries.
NBA players who excelled despite ACL injury
#5 Spencer Dinwiddie
Spencer Dinwiddie first suffered an ACL injury back when he was in college. The point guard starred for the Colorado Buffaloes in a match against Washington. Playing his junior year, Spencer was one of the team's key players alongside Askia Boker.
He recovered from the injury and decided to take his talent to the NBA, where he was drafted 38th overall by the Detroit Pistons in 2014. He later had a spell with the Chicago Bulls, but nothing seemed to work for Dinwiddie up until he moved to the Brooklyn Nets in 2016.
Dinwiddie became a vital part of the Nets team and played a lot of minutes for them through the years. When the team added a few big pieces like Harden, Durant and Irving to the roster, things were looking interesting for them. However, just days after the season resumed Dwinwiddie suffered another ACL injury which kept him out of the whole season. The 28-year-old moved to the Washington Wizards in free agency and will be all set to prove his capabilities there.
#4 Danilo Gallinari
Danilo Gallinari was drafted sixth overall by the New York Knicks in 2008. However, he was traded to the Denver Nuggets as part of a three-team trade in 2011. In his first full season at the Nuggets, Gallinari averaged 14.6 PPG. He signed a contract extension with the Nuggets in 2012, but later suffered an ACL injury that kept him out for the remainder of the 2012-13 season and the whole of the 2013-14 season.
However, Gallinari bounced back strongly on his return. The Italian averaged 19.5 PPG in the 2015-16 season and proved the doubters wrong. He then moved to the Clippers and became a regular there before moving to OKC and eventually to the Atlanta Hawks for the 2020-21 season.