Kyrie Irving spent a piece of New Year’s Day having an MRI performed on his knee. He went down against the Indiana Pacers yesterday, and he said he “heard something pop.”
That’s usually not good, although the MRI revealed a mere contusion, meaning 2013 did not end with yet another potential landscape-altering injury.
Al Horford? Out for the season, joining Derrick Rose and Brook Lopez.
Russell Westbrook and Kobe Bryant? See you after the All-Star Game — if your rehabs go according to plans.
Has there ever been a season in which fans realize just how tenuous a team’s fortunes are?
This year’s NBA champion could be team that wins the war of attrition more than anything else. And don’t forget: Dwayne Wade has a gimpy knee and is far from a sure thing. So as the season progresses, we shall see who is standing at the end on two healthy legs instead of crutches.
I had the misfortune of having a star teammate suffer a season-ending injury three times in my career. All three times, the team went from being championship competitive to middle of the pack. Seasons that started with so much hope ended with a thud.
The first time was 1986 with the Denver Nuggets. We had All-Star players in Alex English, Fat Lever and Calvin Natt. But Natt stood out as the on-court leader. He was a power forward, very rugged and intimidating. He was the guy that gave the team the element of toughness to balance the run-and-gun style we played.
He was a fit right away, and his presence on the court gave the team a certain swagger that we lacked before. Natt raised the team from a really good 45-50 win team to a title contender. We entered the season knowing that we could compete with a push-and-shove team as well as run them into the ground. That could put us over the top. Our hopes were sky high as our team was ready to move from the middle of the pack to the elite.
But there we were in the very first game of the season and the heart of our team was on the court in pain. The trainer looked him over and shook his head.
There was a two-inch gap at the top of his heel where the Achilles tendon was supposed to be. I’ve never been more bummed being up by 20 points in a game in my life. The whole team was stunned into silence. We went from being hyped up to a bunch of zombies in one play. And we still had 81 games to go.
The preseason enthusiasm lasted a little over a half of one game. We went from 47 wins the previous season with things looking up to 35 wins as we got swept out of the playoffs in the first round. That’s what it feels like when your star player goes down with a season-ending injury. At the time it is deflating, depressing and sad. It sucks the life out of you.
Whether it happens early or late in the season doesn’t matter. The immediate reaction is that the season is over.
Bulls fans have a special appreciation for this dynamic, having seen two of the last three seasons go down in an instant both times Rose got hurt.
Hawks fans were quietly building hope that the team Danny Ferry assembled, with Kyle Korver draining threes and Paul Millsap looking like a vast improvement over Josh Smith, would be a contender.
They remain third in the East, one of only three teams above .500. But the Hawks announced Monday that Horford’s won;t play again until next season after he tore his right pectoral muscle.
As a player, being professional you take the hit, regroup and soldier on. Once in a blue moon a player steps up and gets discovered, like Colin Kaepernick did last season for the 49ers. But most of the time, an elite team falls to the middle of the pack and the season ends early in the playoffs.
The second time it happened to me was in 1996 in Phoenix with the Suns. The team made the NBA Finals a few years earlier and was trying to win its first championship. That season we added Danny Manning, Wayman Tisdale and myself to an already strong team led by All- Stars Charles Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Danny Ainge and Dan Majerle. We had a complete, balanced team that was very deep.
Manning was a key addition as a distributor who was very versatile. By the middle of the season we were clicking and dominating the league.
Then it happened. It was a normal 3-on-2, 2-on-1 fast-break drill. Coming down wrong, Danny grabbed his knee as it gave out. He knew right away that he had torn his ACL for the second time, a season-ending injury.
I had the same feeling in the pit of my stomach. As we saw him in the locker room lying on the training table with a mound of ice on his knee, there was a funereal feeling around it. We were trying to cheer him up as he was putting on a strong front.
We were still a terrific team, but instead of being at the top, we were in the top group. We finished with 57 wins but lost a close series to the Houston Rockets in the second round.
The third time was in Orlando where I played with Penny Hardaway. Penny was once the face of the league. He was an explosive young guard who could do it all.
As a team we were in the upper group, but not quite good enough to compete for the championship.
Unfortunately, Penny injured his knee to begin a series of problems that seriously diminished his abilities. He never regained his mojo and his career fizzled, taking the team with him.
Losing your star player can be devastating in many ways.
The most obvious is on the court in the way of wins and losses. The other is exposure and “juice.” Fans typically fade away over time, especially casual fans from around the country. It just takes some of the fun out of it.
Rose is at a crossroads. The former MVP is facing his second consecutive season-ending knee injury. The team hung around last season, finishing in the middle of the pack and beating Brooklyn before losing to Miami in the second round of the playoffs.
This season, the Bulls are free-falling below .500 and looking like lottery material. The lottery has some upside this season, but as colleague Peter May pointed out in his Sunday column for SheridanHoops: Has winning the lottery three times in 10 years brought a championship to Cleveland?
The Bulls are experiencing the same syndrome. They went from being a favorite to the slow death of being average.
Rose himself will now face coming back from major injuries to both knees, two years of virtual inactivity, and all of the psychological baggage that comes with it. At only 25, two years is a long time to have spent on the sidelines — especially when you were the reigning MVP on the verge of winning a championship.
Teeing all of that up is no small feat. Teams get to that level by playing together for a long time, not just by showing up.
The biggest question for Rose is will he be the next Penny Hardaway? Or can he regain his mojo? His game relies on explosiveness and agility, catlike quickness and lift. These are all things that are the toughest to get back.
For me, it was a different story.
My game was based on position and strength. When I was injured, nobody could really tell. As I got older, I could hold more and use my veteran tricks to compensate.
It’s not the same thing for Derrick.
Plus what I imagine must haunt him the most is that his injuries just kind of happened. He didn’t get clipped like an NFL running back. His knees just collapsed. How does he play full-out without feeling like it might happen again?
It would take supreme confidence to not have that thought lingering around his subconscious somewhere.
Things get complicated further by the issue of who has control of his rehab and return. The team has to have a say since they pay his salary. There are doctors who have to sign off to avoid liability. Insurance companies have their forms to fill out. Adidas created worldwide advertising campaigns around him. Not to mention the league, his agents and the fans. The pressure to return is tremendous.
There is no easy answer. Is Western medicine the best way to go? What about acupuncture or some other eastern philosophy? There are dozens of “experts” telling him the right thing to do.
Now that Rose sat out one playoff because of injury, is it easier or harder to do it again? Plus the man is a competitor. It’s no fun to watch LeBron get all of the trophies.
With so much riding on the return of one player, it’s easy to see how coming back too soon is a worry. But as history shows, there is never a right way to do it. In Rose’s case, he was patient and made extra sure that he was ready only to lose a second year to injury.
Yao Ming suffered foot injury after foot injury, never reaching his potential. 是德里克 – 罗斯下一个姚明？
All we can do is watch and wait … and hold our breath a little every game.
Danny Schayes is a retired 18-year-veteran of the NBA, a professional broadcaster and soon-to-be-published author now penning NBA columns for SheridanHoops. Follow him on Twitter.
MORE FROM DANNY SCHAYES:
http://sheridanhoops.com/2013/12/25/schayes-death-of-the-nba-rivalry/
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