Romeo Langford hasn't yet been able to play for the Boston Celtics this season. The second-year man out of Indiana had suffered a torn tendon in his wrist during the playoffs and had surgery on it. The recovery from that injury lingered into the start of this season.
Around the All-Star break, it looked like Langford was going to have a chance to return to action in short order. However, he then was placed into the NBA's health and safety protocols and is just now returning from that.
Before their Monday night game against the New Orleans Pelicans, Langford was doing some drills on the court, which you can see below via the Celtics on NBC Sports Boston's Twitter account.
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And during his pregame media availability, Celtics coach Brad Stevens spoke about Langford's progress in his return to action.
"He got cleared to do all the drills and work and everything else by our cardiac specialists," Stevens said. "Today was the first time he's done anything in however many weeks, and he felt it."
That's certainly understandable, as Langford has been isolated and unable to work out while he was in the NBA's health and safety protocols.
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That said, it's good news that Stevens is expecting Langford to be cleared to play soon. But he did also caution that Langford probably won't play long stints as he continues to recover and work himself back into basketball shape.
"I don't know when he'll be cleared to play, per se," Stevens said of Langford. "It will certainly come soon and he'll be active soon. But he's not gonna be able to play long stints for a while. We may be able to throw him in there in one of these upcoming games at home for a couple of minutes at a time, but that's about it."
That's probably the right way to handle Langford's minutes. The C's are still trying to figure out what they have in him Langford, so it's not like they were going to have him playing big minutes right away anyway. It's not like he played significant minutes as a rookie.
Easing Langford back into the rotation is the best course of action. He could eventually become a lanky defensive stopper and potential slasher off the bench, but the C's are by no means are desperate to have him become that straight away.
During his rookie season, Langford averaged 2.5 points, 1.3 rebounds, and 0.4 assists per game in 32 regular-season appearances. He appeared in seven playoff games and scored eight total points.