[Chron] Yao's next million steps

Interesting read.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5593164.html

Sports



March 5, 2008, 2:22AM
COMMENTARY
Yao must watch the next million or so steps


By JEROME SOLOMON
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle


WELL, the first step is out of the way. Yao Ming's surgery on Monday went well.

The next step and the many million to come afterward are the ones that have so many concerned.

Most people, even athletes — athletes are people, too — who suffer a stress fracture of the tarsal navicular bone recover and never again have any significant problems from the injury.

Most.

For every 20 Michael Jordans, however, there's an Andrew Toney.

In Jordan's second NBA season, he missed five months and 64 games with a foot injury, then returned to drop a record 63 points on the Celtics in the playoffs.

Same injury, same bone, same foot (left) as Yao.

Despite ignoring the advice of doctors to return to action, Jordan didn't have any recurring issues with stress fractures in his career.

Toney isn't nearly as well-known as Jordan.

At the same time Jordan was rehabbing on his way to becoming perhaps the greatest player of all time, Toney was trying to convince people he really was injured.

Same injury, same bone, same foot.

Part of Toney's problem was his initial injury went undiagnosed for some time. That led to other complications, and he eventually suffered from the same injury in both feet.


Toney's fast fade
After developing into one of the elite players in the game — he brought firepower to one of the best teams of all time (the 1982-83 Philadelphia 76ers) and averaged 20.4 points a game while shooting 52.7 percent from the floor in his fourth season — Toney faded out of the league, playing in only 87 games over his final three seasons.

There are other sad
stories about the tarsal navicular bone.

After leading the Portland Trail Blazers to the NBA championship in 1977, Bill Walton faced a similar situation with the same injury Yao has — the same bone and same foot.

Walton eventually sued the team doctor, claiming he was shot up with painkillers, which allowed him to play while hurt.

That was a different day and time.

All you have to do is compare the original Chuck Taylors to the high-tech basketball shoes being worn these days to realize there has been much improvement in sports technology. (There has been an equal deterioration in aesthetics, but that's a different subject.)

Imagine the improvement in sports medicine.

Unlike Toney's, Yao's injury seems to have been properly diagnosed — and quite soon after it first occurred. And unlike Walton, Yao didn't try to play through it.

Furthermore, during surgery Monday, Rockets team physician Dr. Tom Clanton
and his associate Dr. Bill McGarvey removed bone spurs from Yao's left foot, hoping that would be a corrective and preventative measure for this type of injury.

Walton, who suffered his first tarsal navicular stress fracture 30 years ago this month, had a "congenital malformation," his doctors told Time magazine in 1981. Had his condition been diagnosed and corrected when he was a teenager, he might never have had any foot problems.

An anatomical problem is often the reason some can't seem to get away from the injury. For others, it's their mechanical style of running or perhaps improper or inadequate shoes.

Walton underwent an experimental surgery that was supposed to help him walk pain-free but not play basketball again. By 1986, he was on the Celtics' championship-winning squad, though not the player he once was.


The case of Ilgauskas
For every Bill Walton, there's a Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

Ilgauskas consulted Clanton when he was due for surgery — his fourth for tarsal navicular stress fractures — seven years ago.

Ilgauskas, who posted 16 points and 16 rebounds against Hakeem Olajuwon and the Rockets in 1997, missed two seasons with the injury prior to coming to the NBA. After making the all-rookie squad, he played in only five games in 1998-99, didn't play in 1999-2000 and played in just 24 games in 2000-01.

But after his last surgery, the 7-3 Lithuanian saw action in 62 games the following season, and he has played in at least 78 games in each of the five seasons since.

Modern technology and a better understanding of the injury have led to more effective treatment. Only in the most unusual of cases or circumstances do players with Yao's injury find themselves in Toney's or Walton's or Ilgauskas' situation.

There are no guarantees in the medical world, but Yao should be jogging in a few weeks. In a few months, he should be back on the basketball court.

Clanton says Yao won't even have to be like Mike to represent his home country in the Olympics. He ought to be healthy and ready to go.

Step one went well. Unless one of these days it hurts Yao to take one, it appears those upcoming steps are nothing to fret about.

 

The more I read into this, the more hopeful I become for Yao.

1. Technology is far more advanced then it was in the past.

2. They caught the stress fracture early so thats a great thing.

3. I realized that guys like Jordan (not just huge behemoths) get this injury so although it has to do with Yao's size its not a direct reflection of chronic problems of him being so big.