Ex-Celtic Aron Baynes Out Of Olympics Due To Freak Rest room Damage

The freakiest of accidents has ended Aron Baynes’ hopes of main Australia to Olympic gold on the courtroom.

The Toronto Raptors and Australia middle will miss the remainder of the Tokyo Olympics resulting from a neck injury he suffered Wednesday. Baynes initially harm himself throughout the first half of the Australia-Italy sport, however his ailment worsened within the second half after he slipped within the group rest room.

“It was a sophisticated sequence of occasions,” Australia chief medical officer David Hughes informed reporters Friday, per Yahoo! Sports activities’ Kellen Forrest. “He did undergo an harm throughout the match on the courtroom, after which he had a slip within the rest room and suffered additional harm.”

Baynes had been enjoying properly in opposition to Italy as Australia’s beginning middle. He scored 14 factors and grabbed seven rebounds in 14 minutes previous to his harm.

Australia males’s basketball completed fourth within the 1996, 2000 and 2016 Olympics and is intent on incomes its first medal on the Tokyo Video games. Baynes informed reporters he nonetheless believes his teammates can obtain that purpose with out him.

“I, together with the remainder of the group, have been working so laborious in our quest for a historic Olympic medal and I’m gutted that I can’t full the journey with the boys,” Baynes stated, per Forrest. “However I’ve each confidence that they may get the job executed.”

Baynes, 34, performed for the Boston Celtics in 2017-18 and 2018-19. The Celtics traded him to the Phoenix Suns in June 2019. He performed for the Western Convention facet till November 2020 when he joined the Raptors on a two-year contract.