Rodney Glasgow Jnr suits up for Sheffield Sharks four months after tearing his Achilles tendon

The 31-year-old point guard from Brooklyn will suit up for Sheffield Sharks’ British Basketball League game with Leicester Riders on Friday night and is expected to play on a restricted minutes count.

It is a remarkably quick recovery given the initial prognosis when he suffered the injury back home in July was much longer.

"It was just one of those unfortunate things that happen, nothing stupid I was just playing basketball,” he reflects. "You can get hurt anywhere.

"When I got the MRI I feared the worst but after the surgery the surgeon said it was not as bad as first thought. They said if you rehab the right way it could be four to six months, so that gave me a lift.

"That’s when I started looking at the positive side of it – four months.”

Publicly, Sharks were saying they hoped to have their captain back in the new year.

Privately, Glasgow focused on getting healthy.

Given he is an American, it would have easy for him to head back home. But as the only player on a multi-year contract at Sheffield, and as the club captain, he felt a duty to stay with his team.

That Sharks were in the process of moving into the new home at the Canon Medical Arena was further incentive to stay in Yorkshire.

"I thought it was important to be here, because this is my second home now, I’ve been here three years,” Glasgow tells The Yorkshire Post. "I just knew long-term this would be the better option, and being around the guys has been good for me mentally.

"I would implore most guys who get injured to look at it from that aspect, you don’t want to take those things for granted.

"Staying around here has definitely speeded up the recovery. It’s not just been rehabbing, I’ve been doing a lot of community work for the club and a lot of coaching as well so that time away frees up your mind and keeps you focused on other things, rather than sitting at home moping around feeling sorry for yourself. I didn’t want to do that, I still wanted to love life and be involved in basketball as much as I could.

"I’m not nervous about Friday night, I’m just excited to be playing basketball again.”

The 5ft 11in guard returns to a team with a 7-6 (win-loss) record, and 4-1 in their new home.

Glasgow has been a prominent cheerleader on the team bench for most of those games, ensuring he was never out of sight, and therefore never out of mind, when it came to fighting his way back.

What he has seen from a team largely made of players he has experience of playing with - Bennett Koch, Jordan Ratinho and Kipper Nichols etc - is one striving for consistency.

"We have a balanced team, we have a resilient team, it’s a case now of putting four quarters together, because we show glimpses of how good we can be and then there’s glimpses where we show where we’re not so good,” he says.

“We’re a little inconsistent but that comes with having a lot of new players, so it’s taking time.

"So now it’s getting that chemistry. What I keep harping onto the team is we want to make sure we’re playing good basketball when it comes to the play-offs, and are we improving practise by practise, week by week, game by game? That’s the next challenge for us.”