Hand injuries have limited Rajon Rondo’s playing time for most  of the current season. He fractured his long finger metacarpal on his right hand in November,  had surgery for open reduction and internal fixation, and return to play 5 weeks later. Three games after his return  in late December, Rondo sprained his right ring finger. He underwent surgery on December 28th, 2018. Finger injuries are extremely common in basketball and football.

Los Angeles Lakers coach Luke Walton said that the amount of time that Rondo will be sidelined “depends on how he can handle the pain. So we’re kind of just taking it day by day right now to see where he wants to go with it, see how bad that hand is hurting. But he could be out for a while or he could be out for a couple days. It all just depends.”  Reasons to avoid playing include risk of injury or ineffectiveness due to symptoms. Coach Walton seems to be referring to the latter. It’s unusual for teams to publicly discuss this sort of thing. And it’s unclear what role surgery would play in making things more comfortable. Surgery hurts and the repaired structure often needs more time to heal after surgery than it would with natural healing.

Surgery for ligament issues is relatively unusual in the hand. A ligament would need at least 4-6 weeks before an acceptable level of risk with basketball.