Yao's Injury: Freak Accident? Watch this video. And watch it again and again. Bullard says it doesn't look like Yao's foot got stepped on. And at first glance that is what I thought. My feeling was WOW, if Yao can get injured that easy he will never return. His career is over and he should retire now. That still may be the wisest choice. But here is the deal, stupid ass Mcghee charged up and into Yao and bounced off. He came down on the front of Yao's foot. Simultaneously Yao fell down. So 250 pds of force on the front of Yao's foot while 310 pounds leveraged against the bone in Yao's ankle. Something had to give. And it was a tiny stress fracture in Yao's ankle bone. This injury is not related to Yao's previous surgery. This injury did not occur because Yao's feet could not handle the pounding. This injury was a fluke accident that may never happen again in his career. Just watch the video... <object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDq78AUXBmQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UDq78AUXBmQ?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object> The Doctors checked and double checked his foot for stress fractures and couldn't find anything wrong. But they didn't look so good at the ankle. That is a new injury unrelated. The operation was a success even though the patient died. Yes Yao is 310 pounds and if he jumps up enough he may get another stress fracture. But the previous surgery is fine. I am not saying this so we can put the franchise on hold again. That would be stupid. We have to move on. We need to find a replacement for Yao now. But if Yao wants to come back I think he can. This injury will not be as major a surgery as before. This surgery should heal quicker IMO(Is there a Doctor in the house). Yao knows exactly how to rehabilitate. He won't miss much of next season. If there is a strike he won't miss any. Going forward there are some things we learned from this that should help. 1. Yao never ever ever f@@@ing take a charge. yao you are not Chuck Hayes. When you fall down hard you break. It is better for you to stand in the circle and jump straight up. The rules allow for that. 2. Management don't ever pass up on a Tyson Chandler type deal because you think Yao is coming back. 3. Management stop being stupid with this 24 minute back to back bull****. It throws the whole team out of rhythm including Yao. It makes him uncoordinated and takes longer for him to get in game shape and makes him more vulnerable for stupid accidents. If Yao is not ready to play than leave him in street clothes. If he needs time on court than let it be in practice. The only limitation on his minutes should be gradual increase in time to get in game shape. But once he is game shape than no hard cap. Just a general 30 minute one. Anything less is just stupid. We have to accept Yao is fragile and he could get injured again. Yes it is frustrating, but his foot got pounded on by a 250 pound guy as 300 pounds of force feel back and his old injury came out fine. My first instinct was if he comes back he needs less flexibility in his shoes and more support. But I think he actually might have been better off with a little more flexibility. Anyway there is some food for thought.So
Interesting theory, I can see what you mean about McGhee basically securing the front of Yao's foot to the floor while Yao is falling. That would create a ton of leverage. As an analogy, it would be like a very tall tree that is secured only at the base getting pushed by the wind.
After watching seconds 46-47 like 20 times in a row I have to say your theory holds ground when referenced with this video, given the precedents, it would give hope to know that this was a freak injury and that most players would have suffered serious damage, in contrast to attributing it to Yao's frailty. I think that's a question I'd like to make at the organization.
Sure, sounds plausible. But, really, injury prone players just seem more likely to be involved in these freak accidents as well. The organization would be very stupid to commit any substantial resources to retaining him at this point. If no good expiring trade option comes up and he's willing to sign for around the LLE, fine, but it just isn't good business or basketball to rely on him to be healthy anymore.
It's like saying unlucky people are unlucky. If by "injury prone" you mean experiencing more injuries than average (hindsight), then yeah, but that doesn't say anything about the future likelihood of injury, unless you really believe luck follows some people and not others. But if by "injury prone" you mean there's something about these players physiologically that makes them more likely to get injured than others, then OMR's theory is intended to challenge this about Yao. I don't know if the OP's theory is right. I used to think that Yao was just unlucky. I am more and more convinced that there is something about his body that makes him easily injured.
Kobe whacked him good when he broke his foot. Some find the pic of him on the bench with that awful bruise on his knee. Note all the other minor bruises. Shane broke his right leg. Training staff misdiagnosed an infected ingrown toenail. I don't think he's Wolverine by any means, but Yao has had a ton of bad luck which we have all suffered with him.
sorry I am still kind of stuck on frame 23 of the zapruder tape. Do you like smut films? Let me guess you got grandma a copy of faces of death for xmas? I'm just messing with you and your theory of how it happened is certainly plausible as it all happened in one motion. I agree that it may well be fluke and part of it. I was rollerblading and broke my arm and you see people fall all the time and not break their arm. Their is an element of luck in these matters. I am on the 'keep yao pay him the min if he doesn't retire' bandwagon. People here don't agree with my sentiment fine, but as long as he *could* help hen I hope and pray we keep him. I just hope that if he is not going to retire ,that he doesn't try to make any unreasonable demands, as far as income.
Nice analysis I think the injury was there for a long long time but they just never found it because they were so focused on the foot. They said it was related to a previous injury - not this one. And there's no way he develops the stress fracture in that play. It was so routine. That play just uncovered the injury. It did not cause it. To some degree, that's frustrating, because if they had been looking there a year ago, maybe he would still be playing right now.
Can we stop justifying yaos injuries.... it's been called "fluke" injuries before. Whatever the case may be, he's injury prone and he's done. Retire him or trade him and be done with it
IMO, you can't just tell Yao not to take a charge. Yao is going to get rammed into by opposing players, and he's going to fall down, not out of choice but just due to the laws of physics. He eats up a lot of space, and he's slow to get out of the way or jump off the ground. As for the minutes limit, this injury in my mind validated that decision. The days of him playing 30 mpg should be over. It wasn't simply a fluke accident. It was a stress fracture. This sort of injury was inevitable unless he took the the time to properly strengthen the ankle/foot. And on his return, whenever that may be, I agree with a strict minutes limit. The Rockets mistake, in my mind, is that they brought him back too soon. There was a noticeable difference in strength between his lower left leg and lower right leg. That means the rehab process was not complete.
Where were they looking? Why are they not looking at his foot in MRIs once to twice a week since the first time he had surgery? Why are they not reviewing it constantly? It just seems really obvious to have them look at it all? I realize there are a f- load of bones in the foot but we are paying 17 million. Perhaps you can buy time on an mri machine twice a week for a few hundred k a year? I mean is this a cost thing?? or is keith jones really too worried about what cardigan he will rock? Obviously the foot has damage and is falling apart.. but these doctors and the overall approach time and again seems to go down the same road... 'oh yeah we didn't look there' this is all pretty disturbing. My conspiracy theory mind thinks keith jones is working for the enemy (consortium of owners and aggressors like cuban,stern,lakers machine,et al) and is aiding and abetting his directives. I mean he can't be truly this bad right? I think from a management point of view regardless of what happens going forward , they need a fresh start on the trainer side doctor side.. They need to lose this clanton guy and keith jones. I mean what happened to melchiorre anyway? This is nothing personal to clanton and jones just like W - L , Jones and company do not have a real good showing. It's more a scoreboard 'look how many people were injured or stayed injured kind of thing' on your watch. if keith jones were an oil company he would be BP. How many more safety violations are we going to have? NUMBER OF DAYS WITHOUT AN INJURY AT THE ROCKET BASE : 0
WOW I am surprised by all the negativity. I am not saying Yao isn’t injury prone. He is. The combination of Yao’s size and his awkwardness will cause for trips, falls and spills. And when yao falls he can break. I am not saying we should sign him to a big contract. That would be a stupid risk that is not justified. But what I am saying is Yao’s previous operation appears to have been a success. Yes the Doctor says it is related but he was just looking at an mri or whatever they use and not the film of how Yao got the injury. His deduction is reasonable. Yao has a new stress fracture higher up. it must have just moved the stress from his foot to his ankle. If the Doctor is right Yao should retire. But I think the Doctor is wrong. If you listen to the interview he says they fixed the foot but then the stress got transferred to the ankle. I don't buy that. He didn't jump in that play. He was fine seconds before and he was in pain immediately after. The fracture occurred in the ankle not in the foot and it occurred on that play in a split second. That's all it 250 pounds of force in one direction with 300 pounds of force in the other. His fracture is no more related to his previous surgery than if he had broken his knee. His foot didn’t break when he took a nasty fall after 250 pounds crushed it and fell down like a tree. It was his ankle. Just look how long it took to find it. They were looking hard in the foot and overlooked the ankle. Shame on them. I know the video is inconclusive but 2 things make it more defining. First watch both feet you will notice the right goes in the air more freely. Second watch McGhee’s right foot as it lands on Yao’s foot for what appears to be just a split second. At that some moment Yao’s body plummets to the floor like a fallen tree and suddenly McGhees foot appears to be catapulted in the air by Yao’s own foot. Yes it happens in a split second but it appears Yao’s foot manages to kick McGhee up off of him with only the strength of the ankle and foot bones. And in that instant he receives a tiny stress fracture in his ankle. If that is true that is noot evidence yao is fragile. That is a testament to the strength of Yao’s foot and even ankle bones. If I nail your foot to the ground and drop Yao on you so that you almost go horizontal your ankle would have snapped from your leg and your foot would have dangled there. Yao managed to kick 250 pounds into the air. Yes I know the video is inconclusive but it appears to be pretty probable. At some point they will realize this and announce those facts to us. Yao’s injury was a freak accident. If my theory is correct Yao’s feet are strong and will even be more healed if he decides to return. Yao will go through the surgery whether or not he returns and at that time he can decide what to do. Either way the ankle injury did not occur because of the stress and pounding Yao’s weight puts on his feet as he jumps in the air and lands to the ground. The injury occurred because a 250 pound stupid ass Magoo jumped on his foot as Yao was falling to the ground. Unfortunately his ankle snapped. But it was a freak accident and you need only understand the laws of physics to know that not even a sprain from landing on someones foot wrong would deliver as much force as Magoo jumping on his foot. And it is very unlikely to ever happen again. It is also a less serious injury to heal from than his previous surgery and will probably take less time to heal.
The injury couldnt have been there for a long time. They did an MRI after this ankle injury and there was nothing there. The only possibility is a very tiny fracture was already forming and didnt show in the mri and slowly got worse, but even then it probably wasnt from along time ago. did they actually admit it was related to the old injury? I know that was the initial report, but i think the media may have assumed that. I dont think the team said this during the conference, but i may be wrong. Technially a stress fracture can occur in one moment, if the twist/blow is strong enough it can crack the bone, so it doesnt always happen over time due to day to day stress on the bone. I think what Old Man Rock is missing is looking at where the fracture happened and what Yao strained. The fracture is on the lateral malleolus. I believe Yao strained a tendon in the rear of his ankle at the time, so that tells me Yao's ankle was forced to dorsiflex because that stretches the rear of the ankle. It's basically the motion of a calf stretch. What OMR is suggesting is that mcgee stepped on him and force his foot to stretch from the front, but nothing was strained there and I don't see where it could fracture the malleolus from there without a signficant twist of the ankle. If you looks at his ankle as his foot lands, his ankle joint closes (imagine the letter L and trying to fold it together) too far. It happens at about 46-47 seconds. That movement stretches the rear of the ankle AND can sort of crush the lateral malleolus down on the foot. Now personally i dont know whether to believe the fracture happened at that second or later in rehab, but if it happened during that play it would have happened during this motion, not from Mcgee stepping on him. If Mcgee even stepped on him at all it probably wasn't much, as yao's toes fly up fairly easily, without hesitation, as if they were being weighed down.
That being said ^^, it could still be just a freak accident i guess, but i think it's still due to yao's inability to adjust in situations like these....he still has trouble a landing properly and sort of just jumps and let's his body/feet land awkwardly... if he wants to avoid this he needs to learn to stay on his feet and not half take a charge and half contest the shot. He also lands very heavily, so he's probably prone to freak accidents because of it.
