Keon Johnson - might not play (illness) Greg Brown - could play (illness) Gary Payton - Set to debut Monday Jusuf Nurkic - game-time call (illness) https://www.rotowire.com/basketball/team/portland-trail-blazers-por
Interesting that he is playing just after there started to be a lot of questions about what was really going on. Articles, pod casts, tweets, etc.
It has been going on for a bit, but it has really ramped up in the last few days in terms of larger media questioning.
I don't think that's why he's playing in fact I think the relationship in causality is the reverse. I think GP2 has been close to being ready to play. I think that he and the team had been open about how close he was a little too long for the media's liking, so they started to squawk about it. I don't think their squawking sped up GP2's timeline or slowed it down but was a result of it being openly talked about.
Mountains were made out of a mole hill. Exasperation at the continued delay of his debut, coupled with a lack of communication from the team, fueled catastrophizing. In reality it took him no more time than it took Dame to come back from the same surgery.
How do we know when Dame was actually ready to turn last year? I think if it were March and we were in the middle of tanking, people would be less concerned by Payton's return date being pushed back.
We know Dame got the surgery in January and was ready to go by training camp. GPII had the surgery in July and is ready to go now. He wasn't out longer than Dame was recovering from the same surgery. Just saying any worry about Gary's return was a bit premature. The lack of communication by the Blazers of course didn't help. I think they got ahead of themselves too.
Weren't there reports that Dame could've came back in late March, but didn't for obvious reasons? My overall point is that he was going to be held out the entire season regardless of if he was ready March 1st or May 1st.
