I just read on Twitter that this is Gary Payton's third core muscle surgery. Not sure if that is true? Can anyone confirm that? It begs the question. Will he continue to have problems with this injury? Will he never be truly healthy? Has Dame started the same trend?
According to his injury history on Fox Sports, it’s just the one surgery. He could have had others earlier in his career, I suppose, but it doesn’t look to be a frequent repeat problem. Jrue Holiday had the same surgery in 2019 and it doesn’t seem to have slowed him down. https://www.foxsports.com/nba/gary-payton-ii-player-injuries https://www.nola.com/sports/pelican...631393ee-5de8-5c16-a7cb-1ec27bfca164.amp.html
From suppose to return by opening night to damn near missing till the new year. Clearly he had a major setback. I don’t get why they don’t just tell us. We can tell already
So you seem to be awfully excited this guy is the missing piece. Curious why you think he will take us to that next level?
Highkin said Dame said GP participated "fully " in practice today. Casey said GP "participated in parts of today's practice." Which is it
we have the 24th ranked defense at the moment and he was a DPOY candidate last year. i've been pretty skeptical of his impact here from the beginning (and was fairly vocal against signing him), but am still excited to see what he can do for Chauncey's defensive strategy and our zone that teams have started to figure out.
I like the addition of a defensive minded player for sure. I didn’t realize he was a candidate for that award. Looking forward to see what he can do. Just like anything that has to do with this team, I’ll wait and see, I’m not of the mind that we added his dad or a Hakeem level game changer until I see it.
Also, if he was supposed to be ready by game one and he is JUST now getting back to practice….not sure how long we will have to wait for him to be 100%.
Admittedly, I was a bit hyperbolic with the DPOY thing, but he wasn't on an all NBA team because he didn't play as much in the regular season. Even so, every one of his metrics were up there. But he was statistically the best defender in the whole league in the playoffs last year with quite a high sample size.
That level and commitment to that side of the game will definitely take its toll. Hope he’s back to that level for us soon. As a Duck fan this was hard for me to type.