Tired of questions about when he will return, Golden State Warriors center Andrew Bogut revealed that the ankle surgery he had last season was more serious that previously said, and the team is now saying he is out indefinitely.
Bogut had surgery in April to "clean out loose particles and bone spurs in the ankle," according to the team. As recently as last week, the Warriors were saying that Bogut likely would return to practice Monday. When he didn't, some wondered whether Bogut had suffered a setback.
Frustrated with all the talk, Bogut revealed that he underwent more serious microfracture surgery, in which small holes are drilled into bone to spur tissue growth. The San Francisco Chronicle first reported the surgery, which Bogut said the team asked him not to talk about.
So why tell all now?
"We don't want to fool anybody, anymore," Bogut said, according to the Chronicle. "We don't want to keep creating a little bit of excitement of, 'Hey, Andrew might be playing Saturday. It might be Monday. He's back.'
"It's enough. It takes a toll on me personally and on the organization. ... It got to the point that we spoke this morning and I said, 'Let's make it an indefinite leave until I'm ready.' There's no point in throwing numbers out there."
Bogut, 27, tried to come back this season but was slowed by the injury over the first two weeks of the season. He spent several days in Los Angeles last week with Dr. Richard Ferkel, who performed the surgery on the 7-foot Australian on April 27.
The 2005 No. 1 overall pick fractured his ankle Jan. 25 with Milwaukee and missed the rest of the season after being traded to Golden State for guard Monta Ellis. He sat all of the preseason and played four of the five regular-season games, averaging just 6.0 points and 3.8 rebounds. He has averaged 12.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game in his career.
On Wednesday, Warriors general manager Bob Myers addressed the media with Bogut and said that the team wasn't trying to mislead by failing to mention the microfracture surgery.
"In the overall procedure, the focus wasn't that," he said, according to the Chronicle. "We always knew that this was something that may allow him to be ready for the opening of camp. ... There were a lot of components to the injury that made it be a situation that might take a little time, but knowing that element from the get-go didn't change any of expectations and don't to this day."
Bogut doesn't seem to agree. He was asked if the microfracture portion of his surgery set back his recovery.
"Of course it did. One hundred percent," he said, according to the newspaper. "Without that procedure, I'm at eight weeks. With just a basic sewing of the tears, a cleanout and a score, it's generally six to eight weeks. That would have been July, but my procedure was obviously much more detailed than that.
"That set me back a little bit, as far as the timeline. There are good days and bad. There were days last week when I said, 'Maybe I can play.' I was feeling really good. And the next day, it felt absolutely shocking."
Talk now goes from Bogut possibly returning this weekend to possibly missing the season.
"We've got five months left, six if we make the playoffs. I don't think it's going to be another six months," Bogut said, according to the Chronicle. "That would be a massive setback. I'm not going to say a month, two months or three months, but I definitely think I'll be back to play again this season."
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.