Is Michael Redd’s Injury Career-Ending?

by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni

Michael Redd, the snake-bitten franchise player for the Milwaukee Bucks, had his season extinguished because of a torn anterior cruciate ligament and torn medial collateral ligament in his left knee. The injury, which he suffered on Sunday night in Los Angeles, is the second season-ender for Redd in the last two years.

There is now some concern that Michael’s career may be in jeopardy. By season’s end, he will have missed a combined 83 games in two years.

The Journal Sentinel takes a closer look at Michael’s troubling history of knee injuries:

One anterior cruciate ligament tear can be devastating to a professional basketball player. But two?

Milwaukee Bucks guard Michael Redd is facing career-threatening ACL and medial collateral ligament tears in his left knee after going down in the second quarter of Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Staples Center. It’s the same injury he suffered – to the same knee – almost one year earlier in a home game against the Sacramento Kings.

Redd had labored through 18 games this season while trying to come back from last year’s injury and a strained left patella tendon he suffered in the home opener on Oct. 31. The patella injury sidelined him for 16 games, but he was playing in his 13th consecutive game Sunday.

For what it’s worth, the devastated Redd says he won’t let this injury keep him down — he plans on coming back to the NBA strong.

Best of luck to you, Michael. You’re going to need quite a bit of it.