Didn't see this posted anywhere yet. Please remove if I've missed it. LINK This quote was interesting ... "I would hope by mid September I'll start going much harder on the court. They want me to get to the point where I can jump, and land, comfortably. We're shooting for me being ready to roll on opening night. It's a realistic goal and it's all I'm thinking about right now." Is there any realistic chance Joel is ready by opening night? Optimistically, I heard reports that if he's ready by mid-season that the Blazers would be lucky.
Pryzbilla is a warrior and it is a contract year for him. More importantly this next contract will probably be the final contract of his career. He'll be back before Christmas. Side note: If Joel hadn't gotten hurt he would have opted out and I bet he could have easily gotten a 4-5 yr deal at $5-6 mill per from a team. That was a $25-30 mill injury to the big guy. He has a lot of motivation to get back playing.
I heard a couple of weeks ago on courtside that Joel would be ready by opening night. The fact that it is even close to that month is excellent. Both from a depth standpoint and a trade standpoint. Good news regardless of the exact date. Especially since the docs on this site said he would never play again.
Thanks for the link. Sounds like he's further along than I was expecting. With Oden and Joel eventually joining Camby/Aldridge, are bigs are looking very good.
Joel's suffered his *second* injury to the same knee, roughly 4(?) months after Oden suffered his injury. Furthermore, Joel is older and his initial injury was described as even worse than Oden's. Now they are supposed to be ready to go at the same time???? I applaud Joel for wanting to get back on the court - but that seems outrageously optimistic.
Same thing I asked about Oden. What does the optimistic prediction mean by "ready by opening night?" This limited prediction is specific, so I like it.
So by Game 1, Joel will jump and land, but not rebound, run, or play. I can respect that restrained definition of "ready." As I posted a couple of weeks ago when everyone was happy that Oden would be "ready by opening night," does that mean 70% of playing shape, 50%, 85%, or what?
Ever since the injury, Joel's been so quiet....the forgotten one. It'll be very, very interesting to see how he "re-acclimates" himself to the team. I'm expecting a solid year from the big fella.
Hmmm....I hadn't ever heard that. Is that simply your opinion, or is there some other basis for that statement?
You need to work on your reading comprehension: ""I would hope by mid September I'll start going much harder on the court. They want me to get to the point where I can jump, and land, comfortably.". Since when does mid September == game 1? It doesn't. It's SIX WEEKS before opening night. That gives him six weeks to work on his conditioning. Will he be 100%? No, but most players, even ones who aren't coming back from injuries, aren't 100% on opening night. They all need a few weeks of playing regularly to get in top game shape. I'm not saying Joel will be able to play opening night, just pointing out the error in your "logic" that mid September is somehow equivalent to opening night. Nowhere in that quote did it say anything about him not being able to "rebound, run, or play" on opening night. That's all just shit you made up. BNM
At first I thought you must be hoping that I'd forgotten the last half of the quote. But then I thought, "No, he probably eagerly jumped the gun and wrote that long post with the inevitable insulting conclusion without ever noticing it."
You can't read, either? You can't see "opening night" in the quote, followed by his long rant saying the phrase isn't there? ...Being kind, I didn't even rub it in over the irony of, "You need to work on your reading comprehension."
Its the fact that I assumed you tried to make a joke with what you said earlier about opening night... but it just came out like a two year old rambling non sense and beaming at you like they said something worthwhile.
It was written to Boob. I await his rearrangement of everything both he and I wrote, in order to squirm out of his predicament. The way these things always go is that being rather pacifistic, I quickly run out of energy to keep up the fight, and I give my opponent the last word. There are usually more interesting pursuits, like solitaire tic-tac-to or something. (You can't lose. Or win.)
I'll "rearrange" it for you, and Joel's quote too. First: I read this as Joel saying that the trainers don't want him to start going "much harder on the court" until he can "jump, and land, comfortably," which he's hoping will occur by mid September. Next: Following his comments about jumping and landing comfortably by mid Septmber, he states his additional goal of being ready to play in an NBA game (which would involve more than just jumping and landing) by opening night. I don't think this is an unreasonable interpretation of his comments.
It would be so ironic (if not extremely frustrating) if Joel suited up for the first regular season game....while Oden did not. tic...tic...tic...
