Aron Baynes, who suffered a spinal cord injury after a freak fall while playing for the Australian national team in the Tokyo Olympics last summer, has resumed his career and will be working out for NBA teams Friday in Las Vegas.
Baynes was in hospitals in Tokyo and Brisbane for nearly two months last summer as he learned to walk again. He returned to playing basketball only in January after grueling weeks regaining his strength through daily physical therapy and is now ready to show teams his progress.
Baynes was knocked unconscious last July 28 when he fell in the bathroom where he’d gone during the fourth quarter of Australia’s Olympic pool play game with Italy. When he came to, he had numbness in his limbs and couldn’t walk. He was rushed to the hospital where scans showed internal bleeding was putting pressure on his spine.
“It’s a remarkable comeback and a testament to all the hard work he’s put in,” Daniel Moldovan, Baynes’ agent, told ESPN.
Baynes, 35, has played nine seasons in the NBA and averaged 6.1 points and 5.2 rebounds with the Toronto Raptors during the 2020-21 season. He won an NBA title with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014 and was part of Australia’s bronze-medal team last summer, the country’s first Olympic medal.