Former Kentucky basketball guard Lamont Butler suffers season-ending injury
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- Former UK basketball guard Lamont Butler has suffered a season-ending injury.
- Butler is out for the 2025-26 season after suffering a torn meniscus and a torn ACL.
- Butler was expected to play this season for the College Park Skyhawks in the NBA G League.
Lamont Butler will have to wait to begin his professional basketball career in earnest.
On Wednesday afternoon, Butler announced on social media that he suffered a torn meniscus and a torn ACL that will keep him sidelined for the 2025-26 season.
Butler was the starting point guard for Mark Pope’s first Kentucky team last season, appearing in 27 games (all starts) for the Wildcats. At UK, Butler averaged career highs in points (11.4), assists (4.3) and rebounds (2.9). He also averaged 1.6 steals in 26 minutes per game.
Prior to his lone season at UK, Butler was a four-year standout at San Diego State, where he famously hit a buzzer-beating shot in the 2023 Final Four for the Aztecs.
Butler went undrafted earlier this summer after finishing his five-year college career. He signed an Exhibit 10 contract earlier this month with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks after being part of Atlanta’s NBA Summer League team. Butler missed all of Summer League with the Hawks due to an ankle injury.
Despite a preseason performance that saw Butler score 18 points and dish out five assists in 37 minutes off the bench, he was later waived by Hawks. Butler was expected to play for Atlanta’s NBA G League affiliate team, the College Park Skyhawks, this season. That will no longer be the case due to his injuries.
“I was super excited to start the season with the Skyhawks and ready to show why I deserve to be on this stage and more,” Butler said in his social media post Wednesday. “(I) had been battling injuries throughout last season and even this summer and had finally got fully healthy to be myself on the court again. One wrong tweak and now it’s a change of plans. God will be with me every step of the way in this journey of recovery. I have such great support around me and I’m motivated to attack this battle. Please continue to send prayers for a speedy recovery. Until then I will still be smiling and spreading my love. See y’all next season.”
Butler missed nine games for UK last season as he primarily dealt with a left shoulder injury that initially occurred in January. Butler reinjured that shoulder during the SEC Tournament.
Described as the “heart and soul” of Pope’s first UK squad, Butler was one of three Kentucky players that missed significant time last season due to injury, along with Kerr Kriisa (foot) and Jaxson Robinson (wrist).
The combination of the injuries suffered by those three players put Kentucky in some awkward positions last season when it came to guard depth. Pope’s second UK team appears better suited to deal with injuries to key players.
UK defeated Purdue, the top-ranked team in the preseason AP Poll, last week without two of its top players in point guard Jaland Lowe and forward Jayden Quaintance. Lowe, who is also dealing with a shoulder injury, is expected to be back before UK’s first marquee game of the season Nov. 11 at Louisville.
It’ll be a little while longer until Quaintance takes the court for the Cats. He’s still recovering from a torn ACL suffered in February. Pope on Wednesday said Quiantance is “a little bit away, but he’s doing great.” Pope has not provided a timetable for Quaintance to return.
Kentucky plays the second of its two exhibitions this season against Georgetown University on Thursday night at Rupp Arena.
