The Thunder will not rush Russell Westbrook back from knee surgery.

Of course, Westbrook underwent surgery on his right knee last week after Westbrook experienced inflammation in his knee a few weeks ago and he will be reevaluated in four weeks.

With training camp set to kick off next week, Thunder general manager Sam Presti held his annual preseason press conference on Thursday and addressed the road back for Westbrook.

“We would never push Russell, or any player for that matter, onto the floor because of a specific date,” Presti said. “I think that would be foolish and we’ve never done that so we wouldn’t start doing that now. It was a pretty minor thing that he had to have done and we’ll see how that reevaluation goes. You’ve gotta work through rehab to non-contact to contact; it’s a process. Having Dennis [Schroder] is a separate thing. That’s not determining Russell’s recovery.”

The original four-week timeline for Westbrook would have him missing all four of the team’s preseason games and it could cause him to miss the beginning of the regular season on Oct. 16.

With Dennis Schroder on the roster now, the team has a great backup option behind Westbrook but Presti said that having Schroder on the roster now will not determine Westbrook’s return.

It’s clear that the team will be cautious with Westbrook and handling his return to the court as rushing him back could cause him to miss more games than initially planned.

The team will know more about when Westbrook could return to playing after the four-week threshold passes so it’s likely that we won’t know for sure when he’ll return until after the preseason.