Suns’ Damion Lee is back after fearing a knee injury would end his career

PHOENIX — One of the most jarring processes you can watch as a lifelong sports fan getting to see more things up close as a reporter is what goes into recovery from a serious lower body injury.

Over the course of a season, you will watch those incremental bits of progress, albeit getting only a sliver of it after practices and not the full deal behind closed doors. From guys only taking shots on the court when they are sitting in a chair, to walking on treadmills and then finally being healthy enough for a standard set-still shooting workout before really ramping up the body for the NBA-level conditioning. You’ll observe players fighting that battle, and it is not a stretch to call it that.

Damion Lee went through his own this past year, and after he wasn’t sure if this was it — yes, it at 31 years old — he will be back playing basketball at the highest level once more.

The year-long recovery process for Damion Lee

The Phoenix Suns guard had a career year two seasons ago, cementing his place in the league after an undrafted grind that started six years prior in 2016. Lee shot 44.5% from 3-point range, untapping the potential of a role for a smart, locked-in player that coaches loved coaching and players loved playing with. It was a giant moment for him personally, as he was coming off four years in Golden State when he admitted jabs that he was only there because of his brother-in-law Stephen Curry irked him. (To be clear, he very much was not.)

Lee re-signed with Phoenix on a two-year deal, the second of which held a player option. He was firmly in line to compete for a rotation spot last season and at the very worst be a reliable first-case depth option to plug in gaps if a position opened up.

Then in preseason workouts before training camp, Lee injured his right meniscus. He would later have surgery on Oct. 10 of last year. Meniscus injuries have altering timelines depending on the severity of it but it is not foolish to place it in the realm of three to six months.

Turns out it was in this case.

Lee went in for a standard meniscus injury evaluation before it was later discovered to be a root tear, essentially straight off the bone. But it was actually worse, a double root tear, leading to Lee’s surgery being a rare double posterior root repair of his meniscus.

At media day on Monday, Lee referenced other setbacks occurring as well. This is all while an unclear timeline provided by the team is giving fans the impression Lee could potentially return at some point in the season. He’s constantly being asked about, surely seeing the tweets for updates on his status. Those updates come in, although vague and lacking the detail Lee gave on Monday.

It’s easy to assume Lee or anyone else in his position can get through all this unscathed, particularly him. He’s torn his ACL’s twice. He’s broken his hand twice. He’s had a procedure done on his foot. The grind of his NBA journey alone is worth mentioning too.

He, however, did not. Lee battled depression, going to therapy to assist him, along with the important people in his life.

“Just didn’t know if I was going to be the same person again, let alone the same player. … I gotta give credit to God, my family, my wife, my kids, my mom, my support system,” Lee said.

Lee spoke on the ability to “get out of your own mind” via therapy being needed and should be encouraged. That’s something he feels that men and specifically Black men in modern day should be more open to exploring.

Lee had been to therapy to help him recover mentally after a surgery before, but this time was different.

“Now, it’s bigger than me,” Lee said. “I got a wife, I got two kids. I can’t afford to not be in the right spaces, not be good, because there’s other people that are counting on me.”

The thoughts that were entering his head were indeed as deep as “is this it?”

Around the three-to-sixth-month mark, though, Lee was moving around on a basketball court again enough to give him the indication that he wasn’t done in the NBA just yet. And it came in waves. There was more progress around the six-to-ninth month mark toward the end of the Suns’ season, before even more growth came this summer.

Lee got through that with tremendous resilience, some of which can be traced back to his former college coach Bruiser Flint at Drexel who used to say “the pressure is not to perform, the pressure is to prepare.” It is tattooed on Lee’s arm.

“It’s what’s done in the dark,” Lee said. “If you make sure everything that you do when the lights aren’t showing — your family life, everything’s good at home — then when that moment comes and you get the interview and you get all the praise and the glory — it wasn’t that shot that made it, it was everything that was done beforehand, that preparation that allows you to get there.”

Lee was a full participant in the first practice of training camp on Tuesday. He is not just on the Suns because he is a tremendous locker room presence, although that would be enough reason to keep him on the team as it is. Lee can contribute, especially on a team that wants to get up more 3s.

Phoenix will call his number at some point.

He will be ready.

“Guys like me don’t get chances like that — you gotta go get it, you gotta go take it and that’s really where my mindset is this year,” Lee said.

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