Anthony Edwards Will Miss Up to Two Months After Surgery on the Knee He Scored 47 Points On

Anthony Edwards kept grabbing at his right knee in Cleveland on Monday night, played 41 minutes anyway and scored 47 points in a 127-125 overtime loss. He had been listed as questionable before tip-off, and the 41 minutes were a season high. The knee was the same one that bothered him through most of last season, and the points were the most he had scored in any game this season.

The report came on Tuesday evening. Edwards will undergo an arthroscopic procedure on that right knee and miss up to two months, sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania. NBC Sports added that he could return sooner than eight weeks, depending on what doctors find during the surgery, and The Athletic’s Jon Krawczynski reported the hope inside the club is that he will be back sometime in December and fully ready to go.

In Sunday’s home opener against Toronto, he had grabbed at the same knee repeatedly, scored 26 points in a win and skipped the postgame media room to get treatment. Before Monday’s game in Cleveland, coach Chris Finch called the knee a “daily situation” and said he wasn’t worried about it being a long-term concern. The club’s status sheet for the next game, against Golden State, still carried Edwards as questionable with “Right Knee Injury Maintenance” when the surgery report landed.

Doctors diagnosed patellofemoral pain syndrome in that knee last season, the condition usually called runner’s knee. An MRI in March revealed inflammation, and the pain ran from March into the playoffs, where he also hyperextended his left knee and suffered a bone bruise without ligament damage. He missed 21 regular-season games last season and finished with 61 appearances, after five seasons in which he had rarely missed time at all.

He spent the summer trying to fix it. At training camp he said he took two months away from basketball after the season to let the knee heal, put on weight during the layoff and lost it again once treatment work brought him back, and he arrived at camp saying he felt great. Four games into the new season he was averaging 33.3 points, 4.8 rebounds and 3.5 assists on 48 percent shooting, with 45 in the opener at Miami, 26 against Toronto and 47 at Cleveland.

In April, the league denied his request for an exception to its 65-game awards rule. He had finished the season with 61 games, 60 of them at 20 minutes or more, and the exception went to Luka Doncic and Cade Cunningham while his was turned down. Finch said at the time that the rule then felt “more like a suggestion than a rule,” and Edwards’ business manager Justin Holland said Edwards was upset about missing 65 not because of the awards but because he wants to play all 82 games. He averaged a career-high 28.8 points that season and received no postseason honors.

The NBA‘s awards rule requires 65 appearances for Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player and the All-NBA and All-Defensive teams, with a minutes condition attached to most of those games. Edwards has played four games, so he needs 61 more, which means he can miss at most 17 more. Counting the published schedule, missing through November 29 at Sacramento leaves him at 65 exactly, and only if he plays every game after that. Missing one more, through December 1 at Portland, leaves 64. Missing through December 12 at Phoenix, the first game after a ten-day gap in the schedule, leaves 62. Two months out, through December 27 at Golden State, leaves 55.

NBC Sports described the surgery as a proactive move by a club that looks at the Western Conference and believes it can contend, with a return around Christmas leaving time to rebuild seeding and chemistry before the playoffs. Last season the club nursed the same knee to the finish and lost the awards line anyway, finishing with 61 games and a denied exception. The operation comes four games into this season.

Ayo Dosunmu is the projected replacement in the starting lineup, alongside LaMelo Ball, Jaden McDaniels, Jonathan Kuminga and Rudy Gobert, after averaging 12 points, four rebounds and four assists off the bench. Edwards and Ball combined for 66 points in the opener at Miami, and the scoring load now falls heaviest on Ball and McDaniels. Donte DiVincenzo, the guard whose minutes would have helped cover the gap, is himself out after right Achilles tendon repair with no timetable for a return, leaving Terrence Shannon Jr. and Bones Hyland as the next guards in line. Edwards played 70-plus games in each of his first five seasons in the league.