O’Neal, who went through the playoffs with the wrist injury, has decided to forgo surgery in favor of rehabilitation, according to Danny Ainge. The Celtics president said yesterday that O’Neal, attempting to take advantage of the team’s resources before players are locked out on July 1, has been a regular at the workout facility in Waltham.
“He has every intention of coming back,” Ainge said of the only true center on his team’s roster. “He has every desire to play, and didn’t like the way it finished this year, and doesn’t want to end his career on that type of note. He wants to be a much greater contributor.
“He chose not to have surgery.”
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I'm calling it now: JO will continue to have issues with the wrist, and will get surgery on it either right before the season starts, or mid-season.
Why so pessimistic? Because the exact same thing happened with his knee. He repeatedly resisted surgery (despite team doctors recommending it), and when he finally did relent, the surgery did him a world of good.
Come on, JO. Just get the dang surgery.
Sadly, Roy, you're right on the money.
JO has a pretty long history of foregoing surgery and subsequently dragging out the recovering process to absurd lengths, all the while collecting a paycheck and feeding the media a sob story. In Indiana, his fear of surgery made him decide to play two years on a torn meniscus, and after hobbling around for two years (all on a max salary), racking up over-compensation injuries, and watching his athleticism fade, he finally relented and had surgery, only to find out that by forgoing a relatively minor surgery for two years he had caused his knee to deteriorate into the dreaded 'bone-on-bone' condition. Of course, he didn't blame himself for causing a minor injury to balloon into a life-long handicap--nope, all he talked about afterward was how 'tough' he was to play 2 years on a torn meniscus.
Last season, JO originally injured his wrist in his first preseason game (an injury the team characterized as a torn cartilage in his left wrist), and subsequently wore a wrap on that wrist the rest of the season, only to re-injure it in the first game of the playoffs. Since JO missed about 4 months of the regular season (in two separate two-month absences), it's safe to say that even with rest the wrist did not heal completely, and so this latest news is most depressing--because given JO's notoriously bad healing abilities that wrist will most likely still be a problem next season.
Normally, I think the athlete should decide how and when to care for their body. However, in JO's case, I think he's proven that he's fairly inept when it comes to maintaining his health. There are two kinds of people who avoid surgery--the ones who can play through pain (like Kobe Bryant who decided against finger surgery) and the ones that who can't. JO is decidedly in that second camp, he's unable to play effectively through pain (as he showed in both the regular season and the playoffs), yet he's afraid to get the corrective surgery he needs to be pain-free.
And people wonder why JO has worn out his welcome in 4 cities over the last 8 years--well, it's pretty clear to me why: this guy can't be trusted to put his team first. He's not tough enough to play well when hurt, and he's not smart enough to have surgery when he's too hurt to play well. As such, he's selfish loser, both in spirit and in body, and exactly the kind of player who doesn't deserve to wear a Celtic uniform.
Topic: We've been down this road before: JO foregos wrist surgery for rest and rehab (Read 5682 times)