Khris Middleton is confident he will return this season

The Milwaukee Bucks are knocking on the door of the Eastern Conference playoff race, and they could get a big pick-me-up before the end of the year.

Bucks forward Khris Middleton, who has been sidelined for the entire 2016-17 campaign thus far with a torn left hamstring, said earlier this week that he is confident he will be able to return this season.

“I’m making good progress within the last couple weeks but I’ve still got a long way to go,” Middleton said, per Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “A hamstring is definitely nothing to play with. There are chronic hamstring injuries where guys think it is fine and they go out there and try to run and pull it again. That’s something I definitely don’t want to go through.

“I feel like I’ll definitely be back this year, barring a setback or anything like that,” continued the 25-year-old. “But the way this team is playing, I’m not going to rush. They’re doing a great job of winning ball games and fighting each night. I just will take my time, and they’re all telling me the same thing.”

Gardner also notes that, while a return timetable still has yet to be established, it’s clear that Middleton has been making steady progress in his recovery from surgery. That’s a major positive development for Milwaukee, especially considering how nasty Middleton’s injury sounded. The Texas A&M product was originally expected to miss six months of action with the tear, which would put his return some time in late March or early April.

The Bucks, who are currently ninth in the East at 13-14 on the year, have made due in the meantime with a pesky, pterodactyl-esque starting five of Matthew Dellavedova, Tony Snell, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Jabari Parker, and John Henson. But they’ve badly missed Middleton’s upper-echelon wing defense along with his three-point shooting (40.0 percent for his career). Having Middleton supplant Snell in the starting lineup for a potential postseason run could make Milwaukee seriously spooky come early-to-mid 2017.