Five minutes into the Clippers’ preseason opener in Honolulu, Max Strus went down without anyone touching him. The video that spread afterward was not of the injury. It was of Darius Garland, who had just passed him the ball, slamming the ball into his own head and walking off.
Strus suffered a partial tear of the plantar fascia in his right foot. He will be reevaluated in four weeks. The Clippers open the regular season on Oct. 21 against Sacramento.
These Two Keep Finding Each Other
Worth clearing up, because plenty of coverage still has them in Cleveland: Garland and Strus are both Clippers now. Garland was traded from the Cavaliers in February 2026. Strus arrived in a multi-team deal in mid-August involving Cleveland, Denver and Sacramento, with Peyton Watson going to the Cavs.
They were teammates in Cleveland. Garland has called Strus “one of my favorite teammates.” That is the context for the reaction. He did not watch a role player tweak a foot. He watched a friend’s season start the way the last two have ended.
Strus Has Been Here Before
Strus is 30. He signed a four-year, $63 million deal with Cleveland via sign-and-trade in July 2023, and 2026-27 is the final year. Last season he averaged 11.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists on 44.3 percent shooting and 40.2 percent from three, in a year cut up by a Jones fracture in his left foot that required surgery.
Now it is the right foot. A partial plantar fascia tear is not the same injury, and it is the same body part region on an athlete who makes his living relocating off the ball for 36 minutes a night.
Garland Has His Own Scar Tissue
Garland is 26 and makes $42,166,510 this season on a deal running through 2028. His medical file reads like a dare: reconstructive surgery on his left great toe in June 2025, a Grade 1 right big-toe sprain in January 2026, surgery for torn ligaments in his left big toe in June 2026.
He played 45 games last season across both teams, averaging 18.8 points and 6.7 assists, and was better after the trade at 19.9 and 6.4 in 19 Clippers games. “Body is good. Toe is 100 percent,” he told Andscape. He also said: “Everybody felt I was out of the league, basically.”
Four Weeks Is the Optimistic Number
Reevaluation in four weeks is not a return in four weeks. Plantar fascia injuries are notorious for lingering past every timeline attached to them, and partial tears have a habit of becoming full ones when a player comes back on a schedule instead of on feel.
The Clippers built this roster to space the floor around guard play. Strus was a core part of that. Losing him before the opener is not fatal, and the four-week checkpoint in early November is the real date to watch.
Neither Garland nor Ty Lue has publicly addressed the injury.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.