Comments on: Not Exactly Good News for Greg Oden

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:55:12 +0000

Eduardo Najera a “great” player before the surgery?

And please, dear God get a new banner at the top of the page. That is atrocious.

By: bjk

bjk — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 02:34:47 +0000

Could the “age” of Oden’s bones be related to the fact he looks like he’s 45 years old? Some sort of accelerated aging, related to his height maybe?

By: Nik

Nik — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 00:43:32 +0000

Speaking as a medical student, and a sports fan, I think you’ve seriously overlooked some really important factors in this article.
1) You haven’t factored in doctors getting better at the procedure, when Tommy John had Tommy John surgery, they estimated his chances of a full recovery at 1 in a 100, and it took 18 months of recovery to get back to playing form, today it takes 6 motnhs to recover, and on the low side has an 85% success rate, similarly, Penny Hardaways recovery has darn near nothing in common with Amare’s.
2) Not all microfracture surgeries are equal, When Chris Webber had microfracture surgery, the lesion they repaired was both in a load bearing area of the knee, and much larger than the lesion in Amare’s knee, which was located on an area of the knee that doesn’t carry the same level of weight.

By: neilan

neilan — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:20:06 +0000

Zach Randolph’s numbers went down the season following his microfracture surgery, but he is obviously playing the best ball of his career today.

By: truehoop reader

truehoop reader — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 22:02:35 +0000

“Jason Kidd and Amare Stoudemire appear to have fully recovered from this procedure.”

Only someone who doesn’t actually watch any basketball games would say that. Amare is still a great player, but he’s nowhere near as explosive as he was. Kidd is also still a great player, but his lateral quickness took a big hit. He’s often a defensive liability now.

By: tangotiger

tangotiger — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 20:51:14 +0000

I think baseball hitters would be just as consistent if they each had 30 PA every game.

Roger Federer is “consistent” because he takes over 100 serves every match.

What you are saying is that the stats are indicative of talent, and the more samples you have, the more consistent.

It’s not the players, but the stats.

By: Justin

Justin — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 18:23:14 +0000

This isn’t a fair comparison because what matters is the damage on the knee and age. Oden had little damage and is young, even younger than Amare. As long as the Blazers don’t rush him back, he can be as effective as ever — along with an understanding that the game can be taken away at any time.

By: Casey

Casey — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 16:22:11 +0000

It looks like whatever formula you used shows that Zach Randolph was better before his surgery, but I think it’s fairly obvious that his ‘06-’07 season, two years removed from microfracture, was his best.

By: mrparker

mrparker — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 15:04:47 +0000

This surgery has gotten better by leaps and
bounds. They use a similar procedure to
repair torn acl’s and the recovery time has
gone from years to as little as 3 or 4 months.

I fully expect to see Greg Oden doing great
things by January 09′. This is probably
a blessing in disguise for Portland. Some
great teams have blossomed from
losing their best player for an entire season.

Portland should be drafting pretty high
again this year, and then watch out for
the Blazers for the next 8-10 years. Their
nucleus for the 08-09 season will feature
6 players(at least) under 24.

By: Paulo

Paulo — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 07:49:00 +0000

I also read up on the list, and it intrigues me a lot. Outside of Stoudemire, those who came back and produced never really relied on leaping ability to excel (Stockton, Harpring, Kidd, Randolph). So that doesn’t bode well for Oden. On the other hand, Oden is younger than Stoudemire (let’s not include the old man jokes for a while here), so that sounds good.

For the sake of Henry Abbot, I just hope he doesn’t end up as a Sam Bowie.