speaking from the experience of microfracture i will be amazed if he can come back that quickly and not have any complications from the microfracture during the season. i am almost certain he will have to sit out some back to backs due to the microfracture and i am certain people on cf.net will post threads about how tmac is a puss when it will not be the case. the recovery is very frustrating because you will be feeling great and then you might try to push yourself a little too hard and that's when your knee swells up and you have to shut it down for a week.
that's what happened LAST SEASON. he came back too early thinking he was ok, knee got sore. rest some, felt good, pushed himself again, got sore, rest some more... and repeat. i doubt he'll want to repeat the same scenario. tracy knows this is a contract year. he will only play if he is ready to play, and grover will be a big influence on that decision.
I agree. We can be sure about one thing, Tracy is not gonna come back until he is really 100%. He and doctors have to be sure.
What is trully tragic about this is even if McGrady comes back 110% next year, without Yao, we are essentially first round fodder unless we get an extremely favorable matchup. I dont see this having a happy ending.
Baby steps and by the time you know it, His back. The team needs all the help it could gather to try to salvage this upcoming season.
Alot of people on here seem to have a short memory. @ the beginning of training camp people were bad mouthing T-mac for saying he was going to have surgery at the end of the season to "clean up some more of his knee" when he needed the microfracture the whole time, hell even the doctors told him he would probably need it if rest and rehab didnt work. But microfracture is something thats hard to guage even Amare had to take some extra time off after he had his surgery to make sure his knee would hold up.
Some very good posts on this issue. 1. Microfracture surgery requires at least 18 months for a player to get back to top performing level (Amare Stoudemire, prime example) 2. Tmac is not known for taking pain or working out vigirously 3. Contract year makes no difference, the knee will only respond over time... Best case scenario is March of next year and will D Morey/Rick give him a shot especially if the Rockets are in the playoff hunt. 4. He doesn't determine his minutes going forward and I don't think he endeared himself to the Rockets. As you can tell, he is doing all of the talking 5. What difference will he make, 1st or 2nd round... not a big deal to the Rockets. IMHO, I think his career with the Rockets is over and he will get a fresh start with a contender... Maybe Lebron or Roy....
Backnthday i understand the issue of microfracture taking a long time to recover from but, J Kidd, and Stockton both came back within 6 months and Tracy's operation was on an area about the size of a pinky nail (if i'm not mistaken) and on a non weight bearing area of the knee also so really its a toss up until we see him on the court
A pretty silly misnomer. Microfracture surgery is such a generic term that's thrown around with little understanding of what it is. Microfracture surgery is simply a type of surgery. It's akin to say radiation therapy for cancer. Yes, it is used to treat cancer but recovery rates arent static. They're determined by what you're treating. Chris Webber's knee was so screwed up that he suffered a permanent impact. We dont know the extent of the injury or even what is specifically wrong with his knee. I had knee surgery but my injury was severe enough to where 3 years later, I can only jog and cant do a full sprint. The fact is that speculating on timeframes now is simply irrelevant without any actual information on what happened to him. We can only take the team's word on the matter but the numbers being thrown around by people dont mean anything. I still dont know where this came from. Any specific examples besides the endless and warrantless stories that are always thrown around. Every offseason before we saw stories about how he bulked up and then later in the year stories about how he shouldnt have. It goes in a circle. We see one video of him working out and we extrapolate it to mean he's working super hard or we dont see a video for months and assume he hasnt done anything. I mean one picture where it looks like he might have gained some weight (which definitely happens when you cant walk for several months as I can attest to) and assume the worst. Like I said useless to say when he'll come back when we know nothing about his knee injury. I think his days are numbered as well but speculating about his knee injury seems to be so common and so silly on this board.
It is but natural that if the team gets the 7th or 8th seed and draws the top teams then they would most likely be one and done HOWEVER anything can happen and the team could ( with Tmac ) try to go for a higher seed/. Injuries can also happen to other teams and luck could be at the side of the Rockets so its a wide open race for the 4th seed downwards. If Tmac can use this season to prove his detractors wrong then the Rockets would be a tough team to beat. Too much ifs so might as well wish this team all the luck and try enjoying the ride.
that will be the case if NO ONE ELSE improves their game. hopefully AB takes his game to another notch, along with scola and ariza. and there's still our DEFENSE if we're going to face teams like lakers/spurs/mavs, we'll most likely be out. but any other, i don't know. a dominant tracy can get us a 4/5 seed easy with this team.
Agree, but they still need to get some shotblocking with size at some point this offseason to get that 4/5 seed. I don't think the rockets are going to keep this same roster going into the start of the season, still see some moves coming at some point.
Well Robbie, the good thing about his surgery is that it was only .5 cm or inches (sorry, I don't really remember) and that it was on his non-weight bearing part of his knee. I think he should be ready to play at the beginning but shouldn't push it. Do you remember how your surgery was?
It's funny how these notions are somehow contrived and then find their way into the canon of sacred truths after certain folks continue their perpetuation. I find a hard time believing that a guy who came back after his 21st birthday effortlessly shooting turn-around jumpers from 18 feet out doesn't 'work out vigorously.' Let's not forget the summer of '05 when he came back too big which likely started this whole downward spiral. Does he work out smart? No, anyone that saw the videos with that douchebag Wayne Hall can attest to that. Is his body structure susceptible to injury? Yes. There's a lot of things one can criticize Tracy McGrady for, but I'm not sure how so many have reached the conclusion that he doesn't train hard. As far as not being known for taking pain, had he opted to just sit out the first half, the same angry mob would have been ready to burn him at the stake for not playing through the pain. Instead, he tried to play and noticeably sucked, so he was crucified for not being able to endure pain. Go figure.
Great post. Sit out or play he still would of been condemned by most of this board negatively. Why does he not train hard? Because after knee surgery the doctor told him to sitout a period of time and what he did during that time was donate his money and time to the people in Darfur, throw a birthday bash and spend a afternoon with his 3 kids/wife at Fridays? A big part of bone-fracture rehab is letting the bone marrow re-connect which requires non athletic activity for a while until rehab exercises are set to begin. If you workout with no remorse 24/7 you WILL re injure yourself. I do think Tmac is spilling his guts out this summer. I also believe he will regain his 07' form.
T-Mac starting drills cool. Working out with Grover cool but its old news. Timetable for return not set yet. Fine its only August. Season starts in November why should people worry yet. McGrady needs to play it cool himself and keep doing what he is doing.
If McGrady can regain his 07' form, I hope its his form he had in the beginning of the season in 2007 before he got injured. He looked so good (was leading the league in points) and was playing so smooth and kind of looked like a 04-05' McGrady. He was a top 10 player in my opinion until he got injured that year. <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oBKjMp9TLW0&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oBKjMp9TLW0&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
