Yao: he's 300+ lbs on 7-6 frame playing a sport that induces a lot of shock on the legs. Human bones simply aren't going to withstand the pressure he puts on them, especially when he's playing 10 months out of the year. osteomyelitis in his big toe (Dec 2005) broken bone - left foot (Apr 2006) broken tibial plateau (Dev 2006) stress fracture - left foot (Feb 2008) hairline fracture - foot (May 2009) There's no preventive measure for these things, unless you take Yao to the Weapon X facility and coat his skeleton with adamantium. Reducing his minutes may reduce the frequency of the occurrence, but it wouldn't prevent them. One valid question would be why they don't invest the money in a bimonthly CT & MR of his legs. It's overkill, and it wouldn't prevent anything, but it *may* help catch a stress reaction early. It would do no good as far as the regular fractures, though. Tracy: As far as his back goes, there's nothing to do, unless you want to do a laminotomy (or other procedure) and speed McGrady into medical retirement. Picture Larry Johnson in New York versus Charlotte. As far as his knee, the procedure he underwent last May was 100% successful. They scoped it, found loose particles, and flushed them. Had there been a bare spot on the articulating surface, it would have been seen. McGrady goofed around during rehab since everything has to be easy for him, and struggled in his return because of it. Since it can't ever be his fault, he went to every physician he could, INCLUDING James Andrews. If you want to call Clanton a quack for his advice in Nov, you'd better do likewise with Andrews, who's only the best in the nation/planet. Regardless, you can't blame any of them for McGrady letting himself get slightly out of shape and out of condition - undeniably a major factor in his poor play. When McGrady missed the dunk and wanted an out, he once again scoured the nation to find someone that would go along with his self-diagnosis (itcantbemeitis). The Chicago MR (one of few around anywhere) found the tiny bare spot in the non-weight bearing part of his knee - probably a good source of sourness and slight inflammation, but hardly a debilitating injury. Against the advice of just about anyone anywhere, McGrady declared that microfracture surgery was the way to go. The solution is much worse than the problem in this case. But McGrady wanted his out, and promptly threw Clanton and the organization under the bus to get it. As to preventive measures for cartilage loss in the knee, there is none in basketball, aside from not jumping. Or running. Everyone's built differently, but anyone that plays basketball is going to lose cartilage over time. It's like an ice rink. It's why it's fairly routine for NBA players to get a scope or two over the course of their career. Need to smooth down the surface and remove floating or frayed tissue. But it doesn't grow back. There's no preventive measures, there's no undoing the loss.
Nice, well thought out explanation. Much better than calling people ignorant and what not. A few thoughts though: Look, if Yao continues his nearly year round playing, either team physicians put Yao on a workout plan that will strengthen and put the least amount of stress possible on his bones or we will be doing this injury at the end of the year cycle for the rest of his career. Period. It's not their fault per se, but there has to be something that they can suggest regarding types of workouts in order to help reduce the likelihood of injury. I've heard swimming would be better for Yao instead of the workout routine most basketball players follow. My point is, they have to do something to help or this will never end. Whether he and the team follows what they suggest is a completely separate issue altogether. Perhaps they have already and the team hasn't followed their suggestions. I don't know, but the team's physicians have to do something instead of only treat injuries after they've already occurred. At least that is what would make sense to me. Regarding Tracy, his back issues are not anyone's fault at all. My understanding is that it is a genetic problem. As far as his recent knee issues, there are two sides to this issue; either the team's physicians misdiagnosed the severity of Tracy's knee issues or Tracy did not put forth full effort in rehabing from the arthroscopic knee surgery and he found someone that agreed that he needed further surgical procedures to recover fully. Looking at Tracy's past, I will go will the latter. One thing that is certainly clear is that there was a huge communication issue within the organization. Player saying he is hurt to the point that he can't play and the team's physicians saying he will he will be fine, just play through it to strengthen your knees. Which one is it? Again, I'm siding with the team physician's here, but I have no way of knowing if Tracy could truly play or not. Either way, it was a long, sad journey that I'm more than happy to move on from.
but was he considering to do it after this season specifically? Like i said, it's a move he probably was already considering, but i think the tmac issue made the decision a no-brainer for him after this season... **by the way, i'm not blaming him for what happened, i just think he was going to get a lot of blame being the doctor, so its not something he can avoid**
