Been a year-long issue

Crowder narrated that he’s been feeling discomfort all year long but has ducking the team’s medical staff in an effort to remain on the floor.

After all, the former Marquette stud had been playing well this season, averaging 8.1 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game in nearly 27 minutes of action per game.

However, a bad fall in Orlando forced Crowder to face the cold, hard truth: he needed to get his injury handled.

“Well, this situation has been going on since camp. I’ve been dealing with this all year and I just felt like I took a wrong fall in Orlando and I was probably like, alright, I need to do something about this and I got an MRI. I was pushing off the medical staff all year about getting an MRI because I felt like I could play with it up until I couldn’t,” Crowder said.

“The MRI showed what it showed and it showed what I felt, which was a partial tear in my groin. So, I wanted to get that handled. Glad I caught it early enough, too. Then I stopped trying to play through it. I had played through it since training camp.”

Up and down roller coaster

Although Crowder shared that his conditioning was up to par, he felt he couldn’t really go all out and was due to hit the sidelines at some point.

The incident in Orlando was the tipping point. Now that surgery’s done and he’s on the road to recovery, Crowder says he can now focus on healing, building his cardio, and getting his strength and rhythm back.

“I’m pushing myself, still working on my cardio. I’m on the treadmill now. I’m just taking it one day at a time,” Crowder said.