Anyone watching Jordan Loyd over his four seasons in the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague must have been impressed. Not only has he been one of the best scorers in the competition, but he has stood out for his total game as a shooter, passer and defender. What makes everything the AS Monaco guard has done even more impressive is that he was doing so at less than full strength.
Many knew about the broken nose and shoulder injuries that caused him to miss six games in the middle of last season. In addition to that, Loyd was slowed down at times by a bulging disc in his spine.
He had endured the same injury once before, when he was playing college basketball a decade earlier. This summer he underwent a microdiscectomy, which is a minimally invasive surgical procedure in which part of the herniated disc is removed to relieve pressure on the spinal nerve column.
"With backs it’s a little tricky… It could be good one day, bad the next. But it was just something that I think is better for me in the long term and nothing too serious, which is great and something I've been through before, which is great. So mentally I'm good. I'm happy," Loyd said last week during Monaco's training camp in Turkey.
"I feel better already and the recovery's been super solid so far since I've been back with the team, been doing great rehab with all the staff here and yeah, so I just look forward to coming back."