Injuries have been the theme of the 2023-24 NBA regular season for the New York Knicks. When healthy, they have proven to be one of the best teams in the league, suffocating teams on the defensive end and scoring enough to blow out their opponents regularly.

Alas, those blowout wins have been few and far between recently as the team has navigated injuries to several key players. Their entire starting frontcourt of OG Anunoby, Julius Randle and Mitchell Robinson have been dealing with long-term injuries.

Anunoby came for a three-game stint after missing 18 games because of an elbow issue. But, something flared up with his elbow again, leading the Knicks to send him home from their road trip for an MRI.

Luckily, everything came back clean on the MRI and they are just waiting for the swelling and things to calm down in the elbow. But he isn’t expected to play tonight against the Denver Nuggets.

The reports on Robinson, however, have been much more encouraging, as a timetable has now been placed on his expected return. According to NBA insider Brian Windhort during a recent appearance on NBA Today on ESPN, Robinson should be back in the mix before the end of the month.

While he added they are still waiting on an update about Randle, the Robinson news is very encouraging. The Knicks have received excellent production from Isaiah Hartenstein in his place, but he cannot play all 48 minutes.

On a minutes restriction of his own as the team navigates his Achilles soreness, Hartenstein has played about as well as you could expect. But, the team sometimes struggles when he is off the court as Precious Achiuwa is miscast as a 5 in this scheme and Jericho Sims sometimes struggles as well.

Getting Robinson back into the fold with a few games remaining in the NBA regular season would be ideal. It would give him a chance to ramp things up and get back into game shape before the postseason gets underway.

It will be interesting to see how Tom Thibodeau deploys him as well. Robinson made some interesting comments recently, stating he would prefer to come off the bench and showcase more of his talents. It would make some sense to play him with the second unit as the starting five has developed incredible chemistry with Hartenstein as the center.

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