Injury Updates: Kemba/Langford/TT

[SHAQATTACK]

I'm kind of looking forward to see Nesmith and Pritchard thrown in there early.  Will accelerate their growth curve.  Remember that is what the Heat did with Robinson and Herro. Let them play through their mistakes so that they were pretty comfortable once the playoffs began.

thats about all.  We are going no where in playoffs without fully healthy Kemba . Arthritis doesn't get better , only worse .   Dumping him AsAP , the sooner the better ,  the situation will on be worse next year and so on.  No one will want him ,  we were suckered .   Do a Detriot , wave him ,  don't waste more of Tatums prime with max players who sit injured on bench for years.

[colincb]

Wade averaged over 19 points per game for the 4 years after he started treatment in 2013. He had a very good year in 2013-14, but his shooting fell off though he was still pretty effective thereafter. He was never a pure shooter, unlike Kemba, with a career 29% 3FG% and a 76% FT% and the transformation to the 3 point shooting version of the NBA game we have now would also have hurt his game. Unlike Kemba, Wade had a long history of injuries and had knee surgery in 2007 at the age of 25 and had issues from then on with his knees. A good summary of his problems between 2007 and 2013 is here:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1743142-timeline-of-dwyane-wades-lengthy-injury-history

That history is not anything like Kemba, who averaged over 80 games per season for the 4 years prior to coming to BOS. Their games and their bodies are very dissimilar, and sports medicine probably has advanced as much as any other specialization, so I wouldn't put any stock in a projection for Kemba based on what happened to Wade.

Obviously, I have no idea of what the true situation is regarding Kemba, but I expect that he'll be a good player for the rest of the contract unless the situation is far worse than what we know.

[NKY fan]

I'm kind of looking forward to see Nesmith and Pritchard thrown in there early.  Will accelerate their growth curve.  Remember that is what the Heat did with Robinson and Herro. Let them play through their mistakes so that they were pretty comfortable once the playoffs began.

thats about all.  We are going no where in playoffs without fully healthy Kemba . Arthritis doesn't get better , only worse .   Dumping him AsAP , the sooner the better ,  the situation will on be worse next year and so on.  No one will want him ,  we were suckered .   Do a Detriot , wave him ,  don't waste more of Tatums prime with max players who sit injured on bench for years.

I’m with you in this one. At this point seems unlikely that Kemba will be back to his 2018 form. He becomes a very overpaid role player. For all those comparing him to wade and his decline and trying to comfort themselves remember that when wade started declining Lebron just bailed for Cleveland and that was the end of the Heats super team.
I can see now the excuses for the next three years that we are not real contenders ... there is no point of making win now trades and it is absolutely imperative to stay under the tax line. This is a position that Danny (with the help of stevens genius) has been thriving in the last 7-8 years... he can definitely keep doing that the next three 3 years and most fans would not demand win now moves.
But we will reach a point probably after 4 years when Tatum (and brown) will have accumulated enough wealth and signing a super max extension won’t be that important to him.

[nickagneta]

I'm kind of looking forward to see Nesmith and Pritchard thrown in there early.  Will accelerate their growth curve.  Remember that is what the Heat did with Robinson and Herro. Let them play through their mistakes so that they were pretty comfortable once the playoffs began.

thats about all.  We are going no where in playoffs without fully healthy Kemba . Arthritis doesn't get better , only worse .   Dumping him AsAP , the sooner the better ,  the situation will on be worse next year and so on.  No one will want him ,  we were suckered .   Do a Detriot , wave him ,  don't waste more of Tatums prime with max players who sit injured on bench for years.

Talk about an over reaction!!! Man!!!

It's not like Kemba shattered his knee and every ligament in it along with the meniscus. It's not like his lower leg snapped in half and he needed major reconstruction surgery. It's not like he had his Achilles completely rupture.

He has arthritis, for God's sake, something that is extremely manageable. Shaq and Wade both played at a high level with arthritis for years. And both had bigger problems than Kemba. Wade was dealing with arthritis and no meniscus. Shaq was a 320 pound man putting 320 pound man pressure on his knees. Kemba has no such issues.

Heck, when you look at the simple counting stats Kemba had the same amount of points, rebounds and assists in the playoffs while playing with arthritis as he did during the regular season.

Kemba is still going to be a very productive star player for a couple to few more years. He is just going to have to have much more intense therapy before, after and between games and probably won't be playing any back to backs. This can be easily managed to keep Kemba playing well through the end of his contract.

[SHAQATTACK]

https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/articles/the_celtics_fortunes_may_rest_on_the_health_of_kemba_walker/s1_8276_33448505

little guys need 100 % health....he ll get eaten alive otherwise ,  bigs like Pau Gasol can manage ,  world class and athleticism is something Kemba and IT need to survive .  Bigs can still use strenght and height .   He ll rest for six weeks play for two and sit for another 6 weeks .  He has been going down hill with this knee since 2015 .  Kemba sucked it up and played his heart out , to complain would have triggered a problem signing the next deal .  He down played this and now its come to roost in Boston ,  he really even was not right at the start .  Its been bothering him a long time apparently and had progressed futher than Celtics guessed . 


Danny s been trying to trade Kemba ....but like who needs somebody who can't heal to sit 3 years on a max contract .

Celtics are in a win now mode .

Wave him.

[PhoSita]

FWIW Chris Paul has had a meniscus removed from each of his knees, I believe, and played at a pretty high level despite that for almost a decade.

Paul is a different style of player and it's not quite the same knee issue. 

But as Nick says, lots of players develop knee issues by their late 20s / early 30s, especially guys who have played a lot of ball by that point, and it doesn't stop them from continuing to be productive and valuable through their mid-30s.

[SteveD]

https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/articles/the_celtics_fortunes_may_rest_on_the_health_of_kemba_walker/s1_8276_33448505

little guys need 100 % health....he ll get eaten alive otherwise ,  bigs like Pau Gasol can manage ,  world class and athleticism is something Kemba and IT need to survive .  Bigs can still use strenght and height .   He ll rest for six weeks play for two and sit for another 6 weeks .  He has been going down hill with this knee since 2015 .  Kemba sucked it up and played his heart out , to complain would have triggered a problem signing the next deal .  He down played this and now its come to roost in Boston ,  he really even was not right at the start .  Its been bothering him a long time apparently and had progressed futher than Celtics guessed . 


Danny s been trying to trade Kemba ....but like who needs somebody who can't heal to sit 3 years on a max contract .

Celtics are in a win now mode .

Wave him.

What, waive Kemba. Do you know what we owe him ?

[Ogaju]

Dwyane Wade had similar lingering knee issues around 2013, as I remember.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1740243-dwyane-wade-turns-to-extreme-knee-treatments-to-improve-health


Wade played at a relatively high level for another 4 seasons after that and retired >5 years later.

This is true but...



When Wade was younger, he could just blow by defenders, but by 2013, that faded away. But he always also was a very strong, very long player who was very good at hesitation moves, bumping off defenders and floaters. He went from being a 30 ppg kind of guy to an 20 ppg kind of guy. He had a sophisticated old man game too.

Kemba doesn't have that kind of body, and hasn't played that way. Even if he could, he wouldn't be what he was. He just doesn't have the same margin of error that Wade had.

Kemba does not have LeBron!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ogaju]

My take on this is different from you guys and may actually help to put some perspective on this. I made a post earlier last month when the Kemba thing was first annunced that his knee is shot. By the time you start talking about Synviscs and PRP you have a problem. Kemba's problem is his vocation he is a basketball player, a point guard as has been rightly observed by some posters, he needs his knees to be healthy for his vocation.

One important point that is missed by some is the diagnosis itself. Kemba does not have a specific injury, he has a repetitive stress injury (in other words he has an occupational disease or condition called osteoarthritis). The very activity he calls his job (playing baskeball) aggravates and accelerates that condition. The more he plays the worse it get. That is pretty much it. There is some research going on into treating osteoarthritis by some doctors at Stanford University, but they are ust finishing animal trials and waiting for FDA approval of human clinical trials. This is the first treatment that is focused on actually regenerating cartilage. Their literature suggests that they are still five years away from final approval if it works.

His knee is shot. synvisc? PRP? Both just mask symptoms.

[PhoSita]

Dwyane Wade had similar lingering knee issues around 2013, as I remember.

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1740243-dwyane-wade-turns-to-extreme-knee-treatments-to-improve-health


Wade played at a relatively high level for another 4 seasons after that and retired >5 years later.

This is true but...



When Wade was younger, he could just blow by defenders, but by 2013, that faded away. But he always also was a very strong, very long player who was very good at hesitation moves, bumping off defenders and floaters. He went from being a 30 ppg kind of guy to an 20 ppg kind of guy. He had a sophisticated old man game too.

Kemba doesn't have that kind of body, and hasn't played that way. Even if he could, he wouldn't be what he was. He just doesn't have the same margin of error that Wade had.

Kemba does not have LeBron!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sure but we're not talking about running the offense through him.

He should be the #3 scoring option playing off Tatum and Brown.  As time goes on he'll be expected to do less and less primary playmaking.

[RodyTur10]

Kemba Walker was always a stopgap-option. A player that makes sure you stay good (after the departures of Irving, Horford and others) and keep making playoff-runs.

I don't think anyone believed that Walker would be a vital part of a championship contender. Now that Hayward has left and Walker's All Star days seem over we don't need to panic and can just adjust. It does suck for him and his contract isn't tradeable until he shows some high level of consistent play again. However Walker isn't very important.

The focus has been about building around Tatum and Brown after the Irving/Hayward/Horford combo failed. The next 2-3 years we're not going to contend, but that's fine. Just develop Pritchard, Langford, Nesmith, G.Williams and R.Williams. A couple of them need to become reliable playoff starters/rotation players. That may take a while, but it's fun to watch that road.

If it was all about Walker/Hayward/Brown/Tatum we had traded some of the six draft picks we had the last two years. I'm glad now that Ainge didn't.