Zach, Hood, now Skal. Not even half-way into the year, and we have had 3 players break down for no apparent reason other than becoming starters. (and Skal for all of 3 minutes) Yes, Skal has been a bench-warmer, but he is young(ish). Hood and Zach have played serious minutes in the past, even if off the bench. What the hell? "Increased playing time" seems like a cop-out. "Just coincidence" doesn't do it either. Call me cynical, snarky, or whatever - but I am having serious doubts about the Blazers' conditioning program. Edit - posting at 3 AM is usually a bad sign.
Your not the only one. This is getting fucking rediculous. You didn't even mention the injuries to Dame, Melo, and Hezonja.
I don't know about the conditioning. That very well could be the case. I think at a minimum, they should consider upgrading our uniforms a bit.... I seriously wonder what the NBA record is, for the least amount of active/non-injured players during a game.
Most of us came into this season with expectations for this team to do quite well. Well..nothing much has gone right. From the curious home losses, to disappointing performances, to the ridiculous injuries.. But what hurts the most is its starting to look like not much can be done to save this year. I still believe in this team. Just not this season... Years ago, (many years ago) I played on this city league softball team and each year we were huge favorites to win our league. Each year we fell flat on our asses. Then one year, (year 4 of our "dynasty") nobody, including us, had any expectations and we finally broke through and won the whole thing. It aint always fun, or easy.
It could be a point if not for the lack of injuries this team has been fortunate for several years with the same training staff. Injuries are simply part of the game and they happen and often times nothing can be done to prevent them.
Didn't we recently replace the new training staff that had done a great job turning things around after Oden/Roy? I'm drawing a blank on the name.
Todd Forcier enters his 10th season with the Trail Blazers in 2019-20. Prior to joining the team, he served as Head Strength and Conditioning coach for men's basketball at the University of Kentucky from 2007-10. The 2019-20 campaign marks Geoff Clark's 22nd NBA season, all with the Trail Blazers, and 10th as Head Athletic Trainer.
Nurkic broke his leg, and it was his second broken leg, IIRC; I'm not sure how much conditioning could have avoided that. I also think it's a worry that Nurkic has had 3 serious injuries in 4 seasons...that's scary I'm also not sure how much the trainers could have done to prevent Zach's shoulder injury; and we don't know what Skal's injury was I do think it's legitimate to question the decision to let Hood play. That really needs more examination IMO considering the recent history of Achilles ruptures
It was the medical staff (Chris Stackpole) that I was thinking of. https://www.oregonlive.com/blazers/2017/08/trail_blazers_name_jesse_ellis_director_of_player.htm Stackpole was very highly thought of, according to friends in the know, when we brought him in.
In 2009-10 season, the following people had surgery: Greg Oden Joel Przybilla Patty Mills Jeff Pendergraph Travis Outlaw Rudy Fernandez Brandon Roy And yes, even Nate McMillan Blake, Aldridge, and Bayless had injuries or illness. At one point we had like 7 or 8 players active for games. Our bench would be Blake and Cunningham and that’s it. I remember Juwan Howard and Bayless leading us to a road win in San Antonio. All those injuries and we still won 50 games. Some people should apologize to Nate McMillan now that you think about it. Tolliver was on our team for a couple games that year too. Btw- there are teams worse off than us this year. Golden State and Toronto have had lots of injuries. Indiana still playing without its best player. Rockets played without Harden, Westbrook and Capela tonight. Just one game though.
Last 2 or 3 year we been pretty much injury free. Yes there been where some players miss a few games here and there. But seriously injuries started with Nurk end of last year. This year it been Zach that was freak accident with the shoulder and now Skals his knee still waiting for the results. Them 2 I can't blame the medical staff for what happened they just freak accident it happens. Now I do question the Hood injury for his Achilles when it reported it was sore then clear him to play now that to me the medical staff fault do that they should never clear him to play.
I understand the caution from posters on the Hood injury, but there is no evidence that any of us know that says it was a mistake to let him play. Lakers continued to play the much injury prone Anthony Davis when he hurt his leg a few games back as he never came out of the game but was clearly limping during the game and the same staff also cleared LeBron to play when he hurt his groin on Christmas day and was expected to be out a few games but he played against us and played major minutes. Nothing came about from those injuries and the only reason the Hood injury is being questioned is because he ended up tearing it. It may have happened even if he didn't have any prior soreness as it's something that we will never know. You either trust your staff as well as the player or you don't.
One part of the body you don't play around with is the Achilles for someone in sports. Yes he could tore later on when the soreness has gone too.
It's reversion to the mean. Last season until Nurk went down we'd been a really healthy team. Some years you get lucky, some you don't.
Do we know that the soreness was never gone though? I know he had some soreness (don't know to what degree) a few days before, but I would assume he told the trainers he didn't have any soreness anymore and passed any test required. It could have been just an unfortunate coincidence and I'm not going to pretend to try and be a doctor, especially considering very little info is known.
