Zach Collins and his return to the Blazers: ‘I’m definitely not rushing back’

By Jason Quick

It was Monday night, around 9 p.m., when Zach Collins was descending into Portland International Airport, his mind racing with thoughts.

It was the first time the Trail Blazers’ 7-footer had been back in Oregon since December, when he left Portland to have a second surgery on his left ankle in Indianapolis. For the past five weeks, he had been recovering at his parents’ home in Las Vegas, but now, it was time to return to work and begin his rehabilitation. As his flight lowered over the Columbia River, he couldn’t contain his excitement.

“I’m geeked to be back,” Collins told The Athletic. “It’s not all going to happen at once, and obviously I’m not going to be playing a game tomorrow, but I just know the process is starting. It sounds simple, but just to sweat, and workout, and feel sore the next day, that does so much for me mentally.”

Collins on Tuesday had his cast removed and he hopes to begin his comeback later this week at the Blazers’ practice facility once he clears COVID-19 testing and protocols. He said his return is estimated between 4-to-6 months, and while he says his goal is to play again this season, he emphasizes that he will be extra careful with this recovery.

“I’m definitely not rushing back; I can’t afford to go through this again,” Collins said.

This will be his third rehabilitation in the last 15 months, during which he has played 11 games — three at the start of last season, before he needed surgery to repair a separated left shoulder, and eight in the Orlando bubble before needing surgery to repair a hairline medial malleolus stress fracture in his left ankle.

That Sept. 1 ankle surgery was supposed to have him back on the court in mid-January, but on Dec. 11, as the team was preparing to play its first preseason game, he suffered a setback in his private workout.

“I didn’t come down on it wrong, I didn’t get hit, I wasn’t going live. It was just one of those things where after a workout it was sore,” Collins said. “I thought maybe it was because that day it was the most I had done in a long time.”

But the soreness lasted throughout the next week, even as the team stopped his on-court workouts and relegated him to only lifting weights and riding the exercise bike. He accompanied the team to Denver for two exhibition games, and with the pain still present, the team scheduled imaging on the joint when it returned to Portland on Dec. 19. The hairline fracture that was repaired in September had become broken again. Only this time, the fracture was larger.

“The bone wasn’t ready for the load that we had put on it,” Collins said. “With these surgeries, they told me there is a 10 percent chance they don’t work, or something could go wrong in rehab. Long story short, it was just a very unlucky situation.”

Collins spent the next 10 days getting second opinions and trying to understand what went wrong.

“I had a million questions on why it went bad,” Collins said. “I had to do my due diligence.”

He settled on a Dec. 30 procedure with Dr. David Porter, the same doctor who performed his first surgery.

“My doctor said the fact that it is a bigger fracture is actually good because the body adjusts and heals better when it knows there’s a break,” Collins said.

Still, there was nothing that could sugarcoat reality. After sitting out nearly all of last season, he was staring another lost season in the face. Even worse: his contract ends in June.

It was like a kick to the groin.

“Nah. Worse than that,” Collins said. “It was like five or six kicks. It was rough, bro. You know, my life is basketball as far as what I like to do, and where I put all my energy and focus, and to go back on the court and get hurt again was very frustrating.

“And the thing is, this whole rehab process I felt like I had a really good routine. I had a good grip on how I was eating, how I was sleeping, how I was attacking the rehab. And for it to just go bad … that was the most frustrating thing. I did a lot of good things, was very regimented, and it just went bad.”

And that’s why he said he felt “rejuvenated” as he descended through the nighttime sky and into Portland. His chance to flip a bad story was about to start. He couldn’t wait to sweat. Couldn’t wait to see his teammates. And he couldn’t wait to show he has the heart and the mind to be an impact player.

Collins will become a free agent this offseason, and he will do so as a largely unproven commodity. He is 23, and if he doesn’t play in the regular season, he will have appeared in 154 games in four seasons, with career averages of 5.7 points and 4.0 rebounds.

The belief is that Neil Olshey, the Blazers’ president of basketball operations, remains high on Collins. Olshey traded the 15th and 20th overall picks in the 2017 draft to move up to No. 10 to select Collins.

After the season, the Blazers will have to decide whether to make a $7.4 million qualifying offer to Collins to make him a restricted free agent. If they make the qualifying offer, they will have the right to match any offer from another team. Collins says he loves Portland, and wants to return, but adds that his impending free-agent status is the least of his concerns.

“I have to control what I can control,” he said. “When it comes to that (contract) stuff, it’s about what I’ve done already, what type of person I am, and how I go about my rehab every day and what they see in that. I know what type of player that I’m going to be. And I know what kind of player I am, obviously when healthy. I’m not too worried about the contract thing. I know that when I get to the court and I’m healthy and I play consistently, all that money stuff is going to work out and take care of itself.”

He said he has been kept out of the loop if there have been any indications from Portland about his future.

“I don’t get the vibe that the team gave up on me, at all,” Collins said. “None of that. We haven’t had talks behind closed doors about what it’s going to be. Maybe my agent has, but he usually keeps me away from that stuff until the time comes. So, you know, I’m not too worried about it. What I’m worried about is getting back and getting my body right so I can go out there and play.”

His first steps back will be later this week, when he will begin with sitting in a chair and working on his form shooting and his ballhandling. He is in a boot and is still another week away from being able to be load-bearing on the left ankle. He said if there has been a noticeable benefit to his first rehab stint with the ankle it was how the seated drills improved his ballhandling.

“The first time I was able to get back on the court, my handle felt so much tighter,” Collins said. “So I’m definitely going to continue to do that.”

In December, before he refractured the ankle, he said he had ramped his workouts to 20-to-30 minutes, which included defensive slides, dunker work (catching passes and going up to dunk), and a lot of shooting. He was also running on the Alter-G anti-gravity treadmill, using 90 percent of his body weight.

“The first time I went through this, I was very adamant about doing more and more stuff every day,” Collins said. “I listened to the trainers and coaches, but my attitude was very much ‘I want to get back as early as possible.’ This time I’m going to have a mindset of taking it day-by-day, and not really killing myself with the thought of ‘If I don’t come back early, then this whole thing is a failure.’ I don’t want to do that this time.”

As Collins watched the Blazers this season at his parents’ home in Las Vegas — all while being mindful to keep his left foot elevated — he agonized at the team’s struggles, both with health and with defense.

But he says in his month with the team before his surgery, he picked up on something about this group that was different from last season. It’s an intangible, something he can’t necessarily put his finger on.

“I just think this team, once we are healthy and once we get our bearings, I think we are going to be really good, and I wouldn’t be able to say that about last year’s team,” Collins said. “I think this year, I really like the vibe of this team, and I like the people we have. We just have to weather the storm. Obviously, it’s frustrating now, and I’m not saying we don’t have to get better — we definitely do — but these times, when it literally feels like the end of the world … that’s part of the season. Every team goes through things. It’s part of the journey.”

His own journey is once again beginning, and as daunting as the work is ahead of him, he couldn’t contain his excitement as he looked out the airplane window and saw the familiar lights of Portland approaching. When the tires screeched on the runway, he knew he was about to author the next chapter of his life, a life he hopes continues to flourish in Portland.

“Touching down, there was a realization that now it starts again,” Collins said. “It was just a feeling of excitement. And I like Portland a lot, away from basketball. I’m comfortable here, I like my lifestyle here, I like my setup.

“This is where I’ve called home even more than Vegas for the last four years. I was just very happy to be here. It just feels like this is where I belong.”

https://theathletic.com/2363747/2021/02/03/zach-collins-and-his-return-to-the-blazers-im-definitely-not-rushing-back

 

A 10% chance the first surgery wouldn't work and it didn't...the Blazers in a nutshell