are their any previous athletes who played without acl's and how did their careers end up??
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are their any previous athletes who played without acl's and how did their careers end up??
Ward and Elliott both had unrepaired ACL tears. The stories going around that they didn't have ACLs at all is a myth.
Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_
:lol Don't misspell Elliott
Yeah, there were more guys, but I can only remember those two.
when ever I write (Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_L uck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_) luck the fakers comes out
how come when I write seans last name that crap comes out
Elliot
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.c...95/3/index.htm
Quote:
A damaged ACL doesn't have to be fixed—players are now competing successfully in the NBA with damaged ACLs. Anthony Daly, the Clippers' team physician, says, "You can lead a normal life without an ACL, but you can't play a cutting sport like basketball." San Antonio Spur forward Sean Elliott tore part of his ACL when he was only 14. Surgical reconstruction wasn't done at the time because it would have interfered with the growth of the bones in his knee. He still has more play in his knee than normal, but why correct that and take away a year of his promising career when he performs as well as he does?
So Blair's ACLs are actually unrepaired?
Nice to see another 'skins fan on the board.
From what I've read, it seems Blair had this procedure done:
http://vault.sportsillustrated.cnn.c...95/3/index.htm
I still don't get exactly what has happened to his knees. The reports so far are generally non-medical, but it seems that maybe his body rejected the foreign tissue.Quote:
Doctors have tried many other ACL-reconstruction techniques. In one the damaged ACL is replaced by a ligament or tendon from a cadaver. The risks are that the body will reject the foreign tissue or that the transplant could transmit an infection from the dead donor to the living recipient.
Fuck the Stealers regardless of Hines Ward's ACLs.
Who the fuck cares? How many times does this have to be rehashed?
Players who played without an ACL in different sports:
Marty Barrett-Baseball
Hines Ward-Football
John Elway-Football
Thurman Thomas-Football
Roberto Garza-Football
Jimmy Hitchcock-Football
I could not find a story of a basketball player playing witout and ACL. All had similiar stories to Blair in which they had surgery in high school and then the ACL was absorbed. Lets hope Blair has a career as good as some on this list.
The people who most give a fuck are probably RC Buford, coach Pop, and the medical staff of the Spurs. Blair is obviously a greater risk for serious knee injuries than the average NBAer and they are going to try and do everything they can to minimize that possibility. It's not as simple as whatever dude, who cares, the dude is kicking ass...
Sure, he's made of Kleenex then. Some people can worry about and talk about it ad nauseum and never get sick of it. I'll just enjoy his game.
When he actually experiences an issue it is a problem. He didn't miss a single practice, much less a game in college. It's pretty insignificant at this point.
Whatever. The sky is falling then.
When you get injured the body lays down temporary collagen to scar the area. The normal process is that it gets absorbed and replaced by a stronger, permanent collagen type. Apparently sometimes it just gets absorbed and ends prematurely. It probably has to do with the complexity of the injury. The healing process is triggered when blood vessels burst (note that if you pick off a scab, it bleeds then reforms). With the scar tissue erroneously fully absorbed and no more damage signs, the body has to reason to try to repair it again. Bam, no ACLs.
Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_
For the record, Hines Ward played through some serious pain, and his performances were up and down as a result of it. He also had surgery for a torn meniscus, which is typically what happens when people continue to compete with that kind of injury.
That being said, Ward was able to compete at a very high level, and for a very long time. There's no doubt that he is an aberration. But so far, Blair is too. From what I undertand, the architecture of every knee is a little different, and his may allow him to keep playing for a decent amount of time. Or maybe he's just such a beast that he'll kick ACL's ass and have a full career.
For right now, we've got him - and we're lucky for that. I'm sure the Spurs are going to watch his minutes, and watch his knees.
No ACL = No torn ACL.
I call that a win. :tu
Just one fewer ligament to worry about.
If he'd showed he couldn't play without them that would be one thing...
torn acl's are no joke, ive town both my acl's and it was some serious pain!!!!! especially after the surgery, but what i cant phathom, is how anyone can have any stability without an acl, when mine tore, i couldnt even walk without my knee popping out of place, causing extreme pain
Rafa Nadal doesn't have ACL's in neither leg but he manages.
Hey, why didn't Blair play in the second summer league game? Anybody know?
Er . . . I assume those people were familiar with his injury, the reports, the rumors and what his injury might entail prior to drafting him, and if not, then have certainly been reassured by their own medical staff and his agent prior to negotiating a contract.
In other words, not looking for an expert on ST to explain it well after the fact. . . perhaps what you meant is that YOU care.
:lol It just seems to me that whenever the topic of Blair's knees come up, there's always someone in the thread who says who cares dude, he grabbed a lot of rebounds at Pitt, which really is peripheral to the discussion-- and besides why should people uninterested in the topic complain that other people find the subject interesting and want to know more about it? And the more we know about things, the less need there is to start posts off with passive-aggressive statements like Er.... I assume.... :toast
sean Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Lu ck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_Luck_The_Fakers_ is a a good one
No, actually it is very relevant, and it's not just the way he played it's the fact that he didn't miss 1 practice much less a game. He hasn't had an issue since it happened in high school. You can project all you want & it's just a crapshoot, but until he actually starts having issues, it's really not a big deal, especially at the price we get him for.
I'm not projecting at all-- I'm trying to have a discussion about a very unusual and interesting situation and meatheads keep chiming in by saying they don't care about the details of the situation... and what I'm saying is, if you don't care to understand in greater detail, then go look at another thread. Don't get all pissed off because some people want to have an in depth discussion. Your assertion that he "hasn't had an issue since high school" makes no sense-- he's 20 years old. His high school days were something like 775 days ago... that's not a very long time. If your doctor told you that you had cancer and recommended chemotherapy, would you a week later say, "fuck it dude, I feel fine just like I always have, it's all just a crapshoot anyway".... probably not.
knees are over-rated.
ACL = Cancer
:wakeup It is medically impossible to sew together two torn ends of an ACL. The procedure used in ACL surgery is to either replace it with other tissue taken from the body of the patient, or as in Blair's case, to use tissue from cadavers.
This is one of the problems with ST and this issue-- you smugly poke fun of my interest in it and then nonchalantly explain what really happened in a way that proves you have no understanding of how ACL surgery works at all. Your "understanding" of how ACL surgery works-- going in and "sewing together the torn ends"... is simply 100% incorrect. I'm not a doctor, but I'd rather be interested and open to the topic than self-satisfied and dead wrong (with the enthusiastic support of other ST members!) like you are.
Enough already about the fucking ACL's, your killing my Blair buzz! :bang
Does Blair have reconstructed ACL's that were done with a cadaver ligament, or does he have unrepaired ACL tears that absorbed into the tissue leaving him with "no ACL's?" I don't understand what the truth is even after all the discussion and it seems like I've read through a lot of the threads.
:lol It's all pretty unclear because the only reports that have been released are written by journalists, not surgeons, and they use non-medical jargon. My guess from what I've read would be that he had the surgery that uses cadaver ligament, and his body rejected them. But whether they were rejected soon after the surgery or later (or if they were rejected at all!) is still a question. It is obviously a very strange medical case, and I'm interested to know what the exact situation is. The statement that he "has no ACLs" is a difficult one, because it has been used in the media to describe Sean Elliott and Hines Ward, but from what I've read that description is inaccurate-- they both have partially torn, unrepaired ACLs, but some people have taken this to mean that they were born without ACLs, which is not the case. Reading quotes from surgeons saying it would be "impossible" to play basketball without any ACLs at all makes the case even more confusing...
The procedure doesn't matter. If it was repaired with tissue, then the connective scar tissue that held things together died and got absorbed. With no blood supply, the connector also dies off and gets absorbed. If the ACL wasn't repaired then scar tissue forms naturally at the tear. This obviously didn't work either, and the same thing happens. The body absorbing things isn't unusual. Hundreds of thousands of cells die every day and get eaten by macrophages. Stomach lining, intestinal lining, damaged tissue, blood cells, muscle, everything.
Atrophy of organs and such is an advanced topic, but there's plenty of reading on google if you wanna know the pathways to why it occurs and how. For whatever reason, cells receive signals to kill themselves. Large white blood cells eat up the waste, and it goes until nothing is left.
It just so happens that my dog tore her ACL last year, and had the surgery to repair it using tissue from a different ligament. During the process I researched this quite a bit. What is being said and written about Blair does not jive with what I know about this injury, so I'm reserving judgement until someone with real knowledge describes the situation with Blair.
Let's speculate further. It's so constructive.
This shouldn't be a surprise -- players survive without important body parts all the time.
Amare Stoudemire has lasted seven years in the NBA with no brain.
I have no ACLs and it doesn't bother me too much. All the ACLs do is provide stabilization for the knee joint. A good pair of knee braces and he'll probably be fine.
The risk is that if you are missing one of the three stabilizing ligaments, that you might tear your other ligaments up if you land wrong. What I worry about when I play is that I land flatfooted while torquing my knee. I've kind of adjusted my game so that I always come down on the balls of my feet. I also have to be careful when I'm on defense that I don't try to shuffle sideways and then elevate all in one motion. I imagine since he's played for awhile with this injury, Blair has made a similar adjustments.
Of course every once in awhile I come down on someone's foot or otherwise land awkwardly and then the knee braces save my bacon.
I think a lot of team skipped because they didn't think he could be a starter/30 minute a nite guy in the NBA. They could be right. The Spurs will monitor his minutes especially in back to backs. Also he is apparently only 6'6" + a little. Hindsight is always 20/20. I'm elated we got him. I think he will be an impact player at 20-25 minutes a game and I want to see him set picks for Tony and Manu.
Current contenders should have grabbed him. Him and Sam Young. Blair dropped about 20 spots past where he should have gone, it's amazing. Lakers, Cavs, and a few others will be kicking themselves, the Lakers for selling the pick when their bench is very bad, and the Cavs getting that Congolese player.