Is it possible that KG had been injured before February 19th?

[greenwise]

I think we all noticed those knee braces at some points during the regular season and wondered what was going on. In today's Globe

"The spurs in Garnett's knee were detected before the season, but were not considered serious enough to warrant surgery. He went down late in the first half of a Feb. 19 game against Utah in Salt Lake City. He was convinced to rest, though an MRI revealed no damage."

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2009/05/20/garnetts_surgery_is_next_week/?rss_id=Boston.com+--%20+Boston+Celtics+news

That would explain that his stats were already slightly worse than his first year's. Probably he was playing in pain or discomfort during the first half of the season until the situation gradually deteriorated.


On a positive side it seems we already know he may be ready to practice during the summer:

"Garnett is expected to return in 6-8 weeks, according to an NBA source."

[Drucci]

I think that he has become obvious now that KG was bothered by his knee since the beginning of the season. I remember people posting on Celticsblog to say "KG is injured", we weren't sure of anything at the time but now it seems obvious.

I recall an article who made a lot of fans react here, it was about KG trying to light a fire in Patrick O'Bryant during some training, and he told him something like "My knee hurts me, but I keep playing". I think it was in December or January, people posted their worries on the thread, and everybody was speculating on the health of his knee.

[Fafnir]

I think that he has become obvious now that KG was bothered by his knee since the beginning of the season. I remember people posting on Celticsblog to say "KG is injured", we weren't sure of anything at the time but now it seems obvious.

I recall an article who made a lot of fans react here, it was about KG trying to light a fire in Patrick O'Bryant during some training, and he told him something like "My knee hurts me, but I keep playing". I think it was in December or January, people posted their worries on the thread, and everybody was speculating on the health of his knee.

TP, that article is exactly what I was thinking of.

He said he was sick, and his leg hurt. He also wore a couple different braces on that knee. Several were bigger and more noticeable than those he usually wore.

KG's knee bothered him for most of the season. Whatever the exact problem is it became worse and worse until he finally could no longer play on it after the game in Utah when he tweaked it.

[greenwise]

Exactly, that would explain many things. I feel like there was something troubling him all season, particularly when his contributions in offense were almost always coming from that mid range shot instead of scoring inside. Also his rebounds per game were decreasing slowly during the season

The thing now is that it seems Paul won't have them removed (judging Ainge's comments on today's press)...will he suffer from pain during next season if he doesn't get surgery?

[cordobes]

Ah, it would be funny to revisit some of the early posts about KG's injury. Anyway, although this succession of events doesn't exactly surprises me, I'm absolutely terrified. Things are getting closer and closer to my worst case scenario. The only thing they have left to announce is that the spur was actually formed as a result of a calcification of the tendon, due to a persistent inflammation. I'm praying this won't be the case.

By the way, what was the point of all the charade about KG's injury? The muscle strain, the bone spurs with no connection to the injury and all that jazz? I fail to view what was the point of all those lies.

[LB3533]

See this bothers me even more about Danny's planning for our roster's construction.

If Danny knew there were problems with KG, physically, and he knew all 3 of our superstars are a year older, and he knew we were losing Posey and PJ Brown...why wouldn't he do his best to fill out the roster with at the very least solid, playable players?

Why entrust the bench to projects in POB, Bill Walker, Gabe Pruitt, a nice 12th man in Scal, a recovering Tony Allen, a wasted roster spot for Sam Cassell whom we never bothered to play?

As the reigning GM of the year you have to do your best to "upgrade" a championship team, knowing full well that other teams are going to get better and other teams will be coming to gun us down.

Danny really did miss judge or miss calculate last offseason.

[ManUp]

Am I the only taking this as a good sign? I remember when Al Jefferson had his spurs removed he came back a new man. AJ went from a decent starter to a 20/10 type player. Aren't bone spurs a minor injury for the most part? or am I missing something?

[Fafnir]

Am I the only taking this as a good sign? I remember when Al Jefferson had his spurs removed he came back a new man. AJ went from a decent starter to a 20/10 type player. Aren't bone spurs a minor injury for the most part? or am I missing something?

Bone spurs don't hold you out of playoff games or one third of the season like KG was. Something else is going on with his knee in addition to the bone spurs.

[winsomme]

I think we all noticed those knee braces at some points during the regular season and wondered what was going on. In today's Globe

"The spurs in Garnett's knee were detected before the season, but were not considered serious enough to warrant surgery. He went down late in the first half of a Feb. 19 game against Utah in Salt Lake City. He was convinced to rest, though an MRI revealed no damage."

http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2009/05/20/garnetts_surgery_is_next_week/?rss_id=Boston.com+--%20+Boston+Celtics+news

That would explain that his stats were already slightly worse than his first year's. Probably he was playing in pain or discomfort during the first half of the season until the situation gradually deteriorated.


On a positive side it seems we already know he may be ready to practice during the summer:

"Garnett is expected to return in 6-8 weeks, according to an NBA source."

It's amazing, but i still feel like i don't understand what is going on with KGs knee.

so there was no damage. the spurs are not serious. and yet three months after the injury, KG was still nowhere near returning....

gosh this was a frustrating season...

[Schintzius]

I think that when the season started, the bone spurs weren't really an issue, pain-wise.  But as the season wore on, it became more and more obvious that they were causing some pain.  And yeah, definitely before Utah.  I can remember a particuarly hard fall that he took into the camera people at MSG, after which he was limping pretty noticably.

[Redz]

As KG himself famously said "Anything's possible"

[Jaycelt]

Yes, I don't think there's any question that the knee was a problem way before the Utah game.  It was eluded to many times. 

One other thing, I read during last season an article that pointed out KG's production had been going downhill for three straight seasons and it pointed to his already showing his age.  That was BEFORE any of the injuries he suffered the last couple of years. 
I think as Celtics fans we should be ready to resign ourselves to the very real possibility that we've already seen the best KG we will ever see in a Celtic uniform.

[cordobes]

Am I the only taking this as a good sign? I remember when Al Jefferson had his spurs removed he came back a new man. AJ went from a decent starter to a 20/10 type player. Aren't bone spurs a minor injury for the most part? or am I missing something?

Bone spurs by themselves aren't a big deal. Almost everybody - including you and me - have bone spurs. But if they're formed in the wrong tissue or located in the wrong place, they can be an extremely dangerous injury.

A remarkably similar case to Garnett happened in the NBA this season. A player who presented some pain in his knee during the pre-season, was shut down, came back after some weeks of rest and conservative treatments, played a few games with his minutes limited, the pain returned, was shut down again, the diagnosis was bone spurs, rumours about a possible surgery started but they opted to see if the injury would heal itself without surgery, it didn't work out and he finally had surgery. A potentially career ending surgery. If removing the bone spurs forces you to remove another tissue (e.g. part of the patellar ligament, like in the above case) or if there's calcification of fibrous tissue, things obviously get complicated (you're basically performing the same surgery of a ruptured tendon - in this case, McDyess injury).

We'll need to wait to see how serious is Garnett's condition, and there's no reason to be especially pessimistic, but the fact they're admitting for the first time that there's a correlation between the bone spurs and the inflammatory condition isn't good. Who knows what's really going on though...