That's what every team does with every injury.
No can predict the future so when a guy breaks an ankle, gets a hamstring injury, tears an mcl, etc etc they look at the severity of the injury, talk to doctors, and look at similar injuries that happened to other similar dudes and then use that info to try to predict how long it will take to heal.
Everytime I injured an ankle (many times) the dr gave me an estimated time to heal. When I would be expected to be able to lose the crutches, when I could start running again, and when I could play basketball again. His timelines he would give me were usually pretty damn close. Never was he off by months.
Burks was expected to be out about 6-8 weeks. He was supposed to be back right after the all star break. The surgery went well. There were no setbacks. He has been out way longer than expected.