Don't trust him. He's competitive. He's young. He's still 'immortal.' He wasn't completely forthright with the extent of his injury in the first place. I can't believe they'd put him in a game with so little practice time to see how he recovers. One 'full workout' since the one practice where he was sore? Please. I'm as anxious to see him return as the next guy, but I'm also apprehensive. Can you blame me? I agree having him bang with Pendergraph right out of the shoot was idiotic. He's had months of recovery from shoulder surgery, so let's play him at PF without even the benefit of a real practice? Yikes.
Banging with Pendegraph is a good way to test his strength. I understand being cautious but these are pro athletes not delicate flowers.
In his first full practice after returning from shoulder surgery? Risking re-injury by overdoing it the first time he tests the shoulder in a competitive environment seems foolish to me. What's to be gained if he re-injures the shoulder as a result? Seems like it would make more sense to built up the level of contact more gradually. BNM
If a doctor says he's healthy, then yeah, test it out. Work the shoulder, see if he's strong enough. They can't be so fearful of injuries that they start treating them like children. They're getting paid millions, so get their arses out there and make them earn it.
If he had to halt a 2-on-2 scrimmage within the last weak because his shoulder was sore, he's not ready and I don't want him to play yet. Just wait one more week.
What better way to test the shoulder though? He probably needed a real contact test to see if he's truly ready for the kind of contact he'll see in a game.
I would think gradually building up the level of contact until he started to experience pain would have been better than having a bigger, stronger player hammer on him and immediately cause pain (the 2-on-2 was stopped after two minutes due to pain in the shoulder). A gradually increasing level of contact would be less likely to re-injure the shoulder than a binary step function from no conact to extreme contact. BNM
no doubt... defensive switches often happen multiple times in one possession. Opposing teams are going to test him when he's fresh off the IR so Nate is right in making him match up on a bigger more physical player in practice to judge where he's at. STOMP
I'm not saying Batum shouldn't be tested before he's allowed to play in games. I just think the process should be a little more gradual than something that inflicts enough pain he has to stop within two minutes of playing 2-on-2 in his first full practice coming off shoulder surgery. BNM
Allowing Batum to go through heavy contact his first day back is eerily similar to allowing Webster to return when his foot clearly was not healed, in hindsight. Someone is not exercising sufficient caution... They see a return date circled on the calendar and treat it as a green light instead of the blinking yellow it really is. I'm just not sure where the pressure is coming from.
you really think this is his first day doing anything? I see plenty of wiggle room in the telling of this story that he could have been doing all sorts of different baby steps to ramp up to some 2 on 2. We know he's been shooting the ball a lot via Monte Williams, and I expect they've had him doing all sorts of drills/workouts for weeks. STOMP
How exactly do you "build up" contact though? Running through a screen is running through a screen. Let's say you take it easy in a practice and then greenlight him and then throw him into a live game situation and he gets clobbered at full speed and comes out lame, what's the difference? I get what you're saying, but I don't think it's as easy as you suggest to ramp up the level of contact you are taking. Going full speed in practice isn't likely to re-injure the shoulder, but it will give you a good idea of how much pain is still there and whether or not the player is able to play through it.
Not first day doing anything, first day of full contact. That doesn't mean stress test the hell out of it right off the bat...
well they didn't stress the hell out of it... dude got banged around some to make sure he was good to go. Nothing flared up so he is and we're supposed to see him tonight STOMP
Wrong - he had to quit two minutes into the 2-on-2 due to pain in the shoulder after getting clobbered by Pendergraph. Obviously (hopefully), there wasn't any permanent damage, but it still seems risky. BNM
where are you getting the idea he quit after only two minutes? That doesn't seem to be in the article. That he quit out of concern isn't bad per say... some amount of tentativeness and tenderness is to be expected following a surgery and a real workout. He gave it a real test and predictably it hurt some. What wasn't known was how it be doing the next day. That it wasn't sore is a great sign. seems consistent with the sort of rehab advice I received following a couple of bad car accidents I came back from. Sometimes you've got to push the body to see where it's at. STOMP
That's what Quick had said on one of the radio programs the other Day. Actually, he said that Batum slinked off the court (shoulder drooping) with the score at 4-3...and the other guys going, "Whaa?"
Yep, that's where I heard it. However, checking the blogs (Barett's and Freeman's) it appears that may not be 100% accurate (who would have thunk). BNM
