McCants out 4-6 months..

[Kings113]

Sports Illustrated - Minnesota Timberwolves guard Rashad McCants will miss four to six months after microfracture surgery on his right knee according to the Associated Press. It is the same injury that kept Phoenix star Amare Stoudemire out for most of this season.
Timberwolves orthopedic surgeon Dr. David Fischer performed the surgery in the Twin Cities on Friday, and the team made the announcement on Monday. Neither the team nor McCants, the Timberwolves' 2005 first-round draft pick, made the injury known before then.
Team spokesman Mike Cristaldi said McCants started to have soreness in the knee in May and it continued up until the surgery.
"It's an unfortunate situation because Rashad has been working really hard this offseason, and was looking forward to playing in the upcoming summer league games," Timberwolves vice president of basketball operations Kevin McHale said in a statement issued by the team. "We expect Rashad to recover fully from the injury. He's a very talented young man, and we are going to make sure he is 100 percent healthy before he comes back."

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/basketball/nba/06/19/mccants.timberwolves.ap/index.html

Not good news, but hopefully he does recover like expected. He had a damn good 2nd half of the season.

 

[VF21]

So, once again the prognosis is for 4-6 months after microfracture surgery on a knee. When are they just going to accept that it takes LONGER than 4-6 months? Chris Webber has been the most successful at coming back from this surgery and we all know how long it took for him to really get back...

I wish McCants a successful recovery.

 

[BMiller52]

I hope Rashad recovers but I doubt he will. He was going to be a really good player too. At the end of the season he showed he could score with the best of them(okay I'm exaggerating here but he was good)...

 

[VF21]

There's no reason to believe he won't recover. The point I was making is that it will most likely take longer than 4-6 months. Doug Christie had the surgery early in his career and made a complete recovery. Luckily for McCants, he's young. The problem may be if, like Amare, it turns out there are problems with the OTHER knee...

At least these guys have a chance to come back and continue their careers. Guys 20 years ago would never have come back.

 

[BMiller52]

Yeah you're right he should recover. I just doubt it will be soon and I doubt he'll be 100% athletically after this. It sucks for the wolves he'll be out half the season.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

He should take the whole year off, and not half-*** his recovery.

And, hopefully, a nominal loss of athleticism will force him to become a better basketball player.

 

[Bricklayer]

And once again I say about that stupid *** surgery -- BAH!

If a doctor valued his health he would not even dare SUGGEST to me peeling open my knee, removing all the cartlidge, shaving down the bones and then drilling bleeping holes in them, and then closing me back up and trying to claim he somehow helped the situation.

My response would be "you first doc". Alternately you could just have some wise guy blow away your knee with a shotgun and just save yourself some trouble. 50 years from now med students are going to be aghast when they are learning the history of the profession and get this dark ages procedure described to them.

 

[Freakout]

I just don't understand why this is becoming so popular among athlete's. You use to not hear much about it and players with knee trouble managed to survive. How did they treat them back then?

 

[pdxKingsFan]

Players with knee problems used to be done or back benchers not that long ago. Just look at all the "can't miss" guys from the 80s that blew out their knees early in their career. It used to be an ACL or MCL which is now an outpatient thing with a speedy recovery was the microfracture of its time and a career killer. This surgery wasn't an option so the players would just ice it until the knee finally gave out completely and then call it a career.

Brick is right - years from now medical students will be shocked at what they're doing. Probably in 10 or 15 years there will be some relatively simple surgery that replaces the microfracture with only a month or two needed until full recovery.

I remember going to a Bill Walton basketball camp when I was 12 (of course he was hurt and didn't do crap). When asked about his injuries he said he was better than average because most players don't last more than 7 seasons in the league. Nowadays with early entry 6 or 7 seasons gets you to your "prime" years.

 

[Variant]

What would you have done were you in the guy's position Brick?

 

[Bricklayer]

What would you have done were you in the guy's position Brick?

I dunno. Something considerably less radical. Maybe whatever they were doing 10-12 years ago before this insane fad got started.

Whatever is going wrong in there, I have a hard time believing its worse than the "cure" in this case. Its practically a guarantee of years of pain, swelling, and limited mobility. I used to watch basketball in the "old days". People had knee problems, but there is no way that all of these guys who have miscrofracture surgery were all just dropping out of the league back then without it. Whatever they were doing, or not doing, wasn't having radically worse results. And this procedure is so radical, you can never go back. No matter what advances have been made in 5, 10, 20 years, your knee is permanently ruined.

 

[VF21]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Doug Christie have the same procedure early in his career? I think the key is rehabbing properly and NOT trying to rush back... but I could be totally off the mark.

 

[Variant]

Since cartiledge doesn't heal or regrow on its own, I can only guess players who lost theirs in years past either just played with the bone on bone and further destroyed their knee or simply retired. I am curious if there was an alternate treatment for the same injury before... and I can only assume if it was indeed better it would still be used...

I know there are alternate procedures available that can be used in place of microfracture. I understand they work pretty well, but microfracture is still considered the "most proven." I don't know why athletes wouldn't opt for some of the newer cartiledge regrowth or artificial cartiledge stuff though.

(I'm especially interested in knee stuff since I had a new ACL put in a few months back)

 

[SacTownKid]

I think this procedure is something more for the long term. So when they are older they won't be living "bone on bone" which is complete agony.