Seattle Storm star forward Breanna Stewart said she should be back on the court in the next couple of weeks.
Stewart suffered a sprained posterior cruciate ligament in her right knee on Jan. 7 while playing in Shanghai in the Chinese Basketball League. She returned to the United States in mid-January to begin rehab in Los Angeles.
The injury did not require surgery, and the 6-foot-4 Stewart had hoped to return to her Chinese club in time for the playoffs, but her rehab did not progress quickly enough and her team recently was eliminated in the first round.
"I'm doing great," Stewart said during a phone interview Thursday from Los Angeles. "Rehab is going great; I've been progressing. As of last week, I started running and that kind of thing. I should be back and ready to go in the next couple weeks.
"Once my team lost in the first round in Shanghai, and I knew there was no chance of having to go back; we made the process, the timeline, a little longer."
Stewart had been on the court consistently since her senior season at UConn, which she led to a fourth consecutive title last April before being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft. She was the WNBA's rookie of the year, averaging 18.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game for Seattle, which was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.
Stewart also played in all eight games for USA Basketball in the 2016 Rio Olympics. She came off the bench to average 8.1 points and 2.3 rebounds for the U.S. women, who won their sixth consecutive Olympic gold medal.