BOSTON -- Celtics rookie center Vitor Faverani underwent season-ending knee surgery Friday, the team announced.
Faverani, sidelined since early February with swelling in his knee, had left knee arthroscopy to repair a torn lateral meniscus at New England Baptist Hospital. The procedure was performed by Celtics team physician Dr. Brian McKeon and assisted by Jason Rand, PAC.
Celtics coach Brad Stevens said what was planned as a simple scope soon turned into a pretty major repair.
"When they went in and scoped his knee, they found a meniscus tear," Stevens said. "The way it was explained to me, it was near the root. That was the source of his major discomfort the past couple weeks. And so, it's going to be a pretty significant rehab and so that was obviously not good news."
Faverani averaged 4.4 points and 3.5 rebounds over 13.2 minutes per game spanning 37 appearances during his rookie season. The Brazilian import started fast in his rookie season, but playing time diminished and he spent time bouncing between the Celtics and Maine Red Claws of the D-League. He was on assignment with the Claws when he suffered the knee injury on Feb. 4 in Delaware. With Maine, Faverani averaged 12.8 points and 9 rebounds over 25 minutes per contest in four appearances.
"He's obviously had some up moments, had some down moments, like a lot of rookies," Stevens said. "He's a guy that, to be the very best that he can be, just continues to work and he has a good work ethic for scoring on the block and also refining his jump shot, which he does work really hard on.
"On the other end of the floor, anybody with that size, you need him to protect the rim as well as he possibly can. And he really had some good moments doing that, and he had other moments when he didn't do it as well. I think it's just going to be a process of growth with him and getting better at that. And hopefully he gets healthy so he can work on some of the things that will help him do that better."
Faverani's surgery comes on the heels of veteran Gerald Wallace undergoing season-ending surgery for his own torn meniscus on Tuesday.
Faverani is under contract for two more seasons, the final of which is nonguaranteed. The Celtics used a portion of their midlevel exception to sign the 25-year-old big man last summer.