The dated return
Klay Thompson returned against Cleveland on January 9, 2022. He scored 17 points in 20 minutes. The NBA's separate return announcement described preceding knee and Achilles injuries.
Source [1] Source [2]Appearance, workload and performance
A return date answers when an athlete played again. Minutes answer how much of that game he played. Shooting and scoring describe aspects of performance within that workload. None of those measures alone establishes that recovery was complete or predicts the next season. The interval since a previous appearance also includes the calendar between competitions, rather than representing a medical diagnosis in itself.
For readers following comebacks, these distinctions are more useful than treating the first game as a universal declaration of full fitness. Our linked Stokes account concerns a different kind of interruption—a decision about a format of cricket—while the Sports section follows later competition. This article does not give injury-rehabilitation advice or infer private medical details from a box score.
Source [3]