Meet the men behind Deron Williams’s ankle surgery. In a video produced for the Hospital for Special Surgery, Williams, along with Drs. Riley Williams III (who serves as the team’s orthopedic surgeon) and Martin O’Malley (the team foot & ankle specialist), discussed their professional relationship, as well as the reasons why they decided to perform surgery on Williams. The video was recorded during Deron Williams’s Celebrity Dodge Barrage event in September, but only just released today.
“Part of it is just the natural wear and tear that will cumulatively occur with an athlete like Deron over time,” Williams III says in the video. “His game is really predicated on speed and quickness, a lot of lateral movement, acceleration, deceleration, and at a certain point we decided that (it was) probably best to go in and do a little bit of an operative repair on both ankles in order to help him optimize his performance.”
RELATED INFOGRAPHIC: Deron Williams’s Many Brooklyn Nets Injuries
Williams is no stranger to ankle injuries, estimates that he’s seen Dr. O’Malley “over 100 times” for them. O’Malley performed a simultaneous surgery on both of his ankles on May 27th, 2014, following the team’s season-ending loss to the Miami Heat in the second round of the Eastern Conference playoffs. He has not sat out due to any ankle issues since that surgery, though Williams has missed time with a calf strain in December and a rib injury in January.
Williams has averaged 14.0 points and 6.2 assists in 31.2 minutes per game this season, shooting a career-low 40.2 percent from two-point range but 39.8 percent from three, a career-high since becoming a full-time starter in his sophomore season.
