KG's knee health... legitimate worries for the future?

[Drucci]

I thought that this topic deserved to be discussed on the boards though it has already been discussed on the blog.

I'll recap the news about Garnett's knee and the reasons for my concern.

The last reports about KG's knee, after his surgery, are good, the surgery was a success. But Scott Souza gives this clarification :

It is important to note that this surgery was not intended to correct the problem that sidelined him for all but four games from the end of February to the playoffs. The tendon issue requires rest and rehab, while the bone spurs were - according to Rivers - a lingering issue from the start of the season that needed to be taken care of eventually.

And then there is Doc's scary comments, published in the Yahoo Celtics team report from today, but before the news about the surgery :

“All I’ll say about that is that he kept working every day behind the scenes, and each time it got better it would (get inflamed) and get worse,” he said of Garnett’s right knee. “Kevin worked his (butt) off more than people know. I coached Grant Hill(notes), and I never saw a guy work so hard and never be able to play. All that people saw was him in a suit and tie, and that became their image. They didn’t see the sweat and the pain he went through. We went through four months straight (in Orlando) where I didn’t know if he would play. Every night I had to go into the game with two different lineups.”

After the surgery, Doc said "“I expect Kevin to return to active duty in full force and be that consummate two-way professional that he has shown all of us throughout his fantastic NBA career."

But his first comments about the inflammation and all the useless hard work and rehab are really scary... what do you think?

[celticinorlando]

time will tell...but i expect KG will be fine

[winsomme]

just copying my own post from the main page:

I would think that there was an exploratory aspect to the surgery too because there are things that can be missed on MRIs etc that can be seen once going in there.

I wish someone had asked about that (ie if they inspected cartilage and/or the suspected tendon) during this bone spur procedure.

hoping that the fact that they didn’t do anything else during the operation means that they looked at this tendon and didn’t see any worse damage than what was previously thought.

[lon3lytoaster]

Well usually when they do this type of surgery, they tend to notice right away if something else is wrong, so I doubt there was any kind of tendon damage at least. Cartilage, might be a different story, but I don't think we would have seen as much of KG even on the bench if that was the case, and especially not playing in a couple more games in the regular season.

My guess is that somehow when we played Utah a bone spur broke off or something and got lodged in the knee somewhere. Then again, I don't know much about bone injuries and I'm probably talking out my ass.

[KungPoweChicken]

Yes, without a doubt, it's a concern.