Reply With Quote
tbh the universe always finds a way to equilibrate things...
It feels ty. I'm still not over the finals loss and this just feels like salt in the wound. I will be so glad when 2013 is over.
tbh the universe always finds a way to equilibrate things...
+1
Good stuff. I wasn't saying this was the worst time in my life, far from it, I think some above implied that in my post. Just saying in terms of sports, its definetly been the longest hangover/ ty feeling. But I agree with your post, just gotta wait to see how this all balances out.
to odens season startn n endn be4 u kno it
Investigation: The Curious Case Of Greg Oden And Zig Ziegler
What Does Zig Ziegler Say Happened Between Himself And The Blazers?
Ziegler said that his goal in publishing his account "wasn't to discredit or take away from the Portland Trail Blazers or their medical staff." Despite those expressed intentions, Ziegler's account does not paint the organization and its medical staff in a particularly favorable light.
His story portrays an organization that took a confrontational rather than open-minded approach to his evaluations, an organization with a key medical staff member fearing for his job on at least one occasion, an organization that was informed that Oden had potentially been coached to cheat one of his tests, and an organization that initially seemed interested in following his rehabilitation recommendations before moving on without keeping him involved in the process.
Ziegler said that he agreed to test Oden shortly after he was first contacted by the Blazers. At that time, Oden, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2007 NBA Draft, was finishing up his rehabilitation from a microfracture surgery on his right knee that cost him his 2007-2008 rookie season. He had recently received clearance to resume basketball activities but Ziegler said that he was told that the team was looking for additional assurances that Oden was good to go.
Ziegler's tests use motion capture technology as a subject walks, runs, throws and squats. They are essentially standardized and can be given to anyone. They provide functional range of motion grades on a 1-to-100 scale. Ziegler said Oden was a willing participant in the first round of tests, which involved involve walking on a treadmill at various speeds and inclines, and were conducted at a Beverly Hills hotel in August 2008.
"Greg was the nicest, politest, most respectable, 'Yes sir, no sir, thank you sir'," Ziegler recalled. "I was really impressed with him as a person. I have been around a lot of athletes over the years and you sense a lot of arrogance from some. I didn't get that from Greg at all. I sensed a very humble person who sounded like he had been raised properly. I informed him what we were going to be doing. Sometimes I get the feeling from athletes that, 'I have to do this anyway.' With him, I got the idea that he was genuinely interested in getting the test done to prove that he was actually ready to go."
Oden's results on the biomechanical testing "fell short" of average, Ziegler said, because the muscles around his right knee were not strong enough to provide proper balance and weight distribution. As a result, Oden's left knee was overcompensating, taking on an undue amount of stress and force, even during the simple walking portion of the test. At that point, Oden's left knee had not yet been operated on during his time with the Blazers.
"We looked at his left leg, which was considered healthy, and his right leg was doing nowhere near the same range of motion or accepting the same amount of work load and transferring that up to the rest of his body," Ziegler said.
Ziegler added the following details in a follow-up email: "Based on a comparison to ideal biomechanics, Greg failed his functional movement screen. The average Trail Blazer scored over 53% while Greg Oden scored 44% once and 37% and 36% on the two other trials."
The tests revealed, in Ziegler's opinion, that a particular series of strength-building exercises were needed before Oden should return to the court. He passed along those findings to Portland's staff during a dinner meeting and phone conversations. In those exchanges, Ziegler characterized Blazers trainer Jay Jensen as "defensive" and worried that perhaps his job was on the line because of the results of the initial test.
"In the initial telephone conversation with Jay, one of the things he said was, 'Am I in jeopardy?' Tom reiterated to him that he wasn't. Tom's goal was to make sure the athlete was really ready... Jay was defensive. His comment was, 'I'm doing most of what's on this list already.'"
Ziegler said that he responded by telling Jensen that he "was sure" Oden was already doing the exercises and repe ions -- and perhaps more -- but that he wanted the Blazers to focus on Oden's technique and attention to detail during the exercises because a failure to execute them properly would not produce the necessary improvements in muscle strength.
"I said to Jay, 'All I want you to do is spend a little more time and attention to detail on how he's doing the exercise and explain to him the importance of doing the exercise correctly as opposed to achieving the number of repe ions.' At that point, Jay said that he understood and he would begin to do that."
Ziegler, though, says now that he wasn't convinced at the time that his advice would be followed.
"With all due respect, and I know you record these [interviews]," he said. "You've got your assistant GM sitting on the phone and they just spent a few thousand dollars to get a test done on your athlete... You're pretty much going to say what you're supposed to say at that point, with all due respect to Jay."
His feelings from that phone call were not the only negative experience Ziegler recalled having with Portland's staff. At a meeting over a steak dinner near the Blazers' Tualatin practice facility, Ziegler said multiple members of Portland's medical staff openly laughed at him as they attempted to poke holes in his findings and recommendations.
"That meeting with them, the athletic trainer and the team doctor," Ziegler remembered, "Tom was late to dinner by about an hour, and in that hour, I tell you, I took ridicule, I took arrows and bullets that were all focused on discrediting the assessment and technology rather than trying to figure out how we came to the conclusions. The questions you're asking right now, I never got from them. When I made recommendations, they literally laughed at me."
Ziegler and Portland's staff disagreed, in particular, about whether Oden should be fitted with a full-length shoe lift that could help compensate for his "leg length discrepancy." Ziegler said he laid out his thoughts about how a lift could relieve pressure on Oden's ankle joint.
"I really took some time to explain that to them and the first comment out of the team doctor was, 'Nobody does a shoe lift. You've got to be kidding me. What are you thinking? Who's going to make that?'" Ziegler said that he suggested that Nike, Oden's sponsor, could make such an insert but the conversation was quickly dropped.
What Does Zig Ziegler Say Happened After His Assessments?
Less than three months later, on Oct. 28, 2008, Oden took the court for Portland's season opener against the Lakers in Los Angeles. He played 12 minutes and sprained his ankle, an injury that kept him out for the following two weeks.
Ziegler stopped short of saying that Oden was rushed back to the court. Instead, he said that Oden could have returned in the same amount of time if he had properly completed the strength building exercises that he had prescribed. But Ziegler said that a re-test of Oden showed that, while some progress had been made, it appeared that Oden had been coached to do certain things in an attempt to trick the walking portion of the test.
"He had achieved results that were impossible," Ziegler said. "I mentioned this to Tom, it looked as if someone told him what we were looking for on the test...Once we get into the running tests, the athletes forget about what they might have been trying to do to trick the test. They focus on running. His second set of running results were more in line with what we expected because he couldn't cheat them."
Ziegler decided to throw out the "impossible" results and recommended additional strength-building exercises.
"If I had been responsible for his return to the court, all due respect to what they are doing there," Ziegler said. "He would have gotten back on the court at the same time, but those injuries he's suffered since then, I can almost guarantee that those wouldn't have occurred."
In fact, Ziegler argues that Oden's left patellar fracture, suffered on a non-contact play in a Dec. 2009 game against the Houston Rockets, was linked to his failure to properly rehabilitate from the microfracture surgery on his right knee. The injury, Ziegler claims, was foreshadowed by other issues, such as reported tendonitis and pain in his left knee.
"At the time we did the first test, one of the things that Tom or Jay mentioned to me was that Greg was having tendinitis or pain or discomfort in his patella tendon," Ziegler said. "In my results, I indicated that the compensating on his left side for his right leg issues are contributing to that patella tendinitis. They were completely linked. Everything in the body is linked. If my right knee starts to bother me, the natural thing for the body, compensation, is to shift that load over to the other leg. That leg starts to get fatigued, that's when you start to develop those chronic injuries like patella tendinitis or Achilles tendinitis. That's one of Tiger Woods' issues, he has Achilles tendonitis because his right leg is still a problem. Same thing going on with Greg."
Ziegler agreed with a Beaverton kinesiologist's view that Oden's left leg was a "ticking time bomb" because of the strength imbalance in the muscles surrounding his right knee.
"That's exactly the phrase I would use," he said. "Some people call them scare tactics. I like to call it the truth. If you don't address these issues -- and I said this to the Blazers -- Greg will have a major injury in the next 12-15 months. Those were my words exactly, expressly as they were laughing at me. Laughing at the recommendations. At the end of the day, this is about Greg, this isn't about me or you guys. This is about Greg and what can we do to make it work, and Tom reiterated that."
What Does Zig Ziegler Advise Now?
After the patella fracture, Oden underwent a microfracture surgery on his left knee in Nov. 2010 after another non-contact incident during his rehabilitation process. In Feb. 2012, Oden underwent arthroscopic knee surgery on his right knee and, finally, another microfracture knee surgery on his left knee. He also developed blood clots in his left ankle that delayed his fifth knee surgery.
Despite that injury history, Ziegler said that Portland made the wrong decision in releasing Oden at the Mar. 15 trade deadline.
"If I were the Portland Trail Blazers, I wouldn't have cut him," he said. "I would not have cut him. What I would have done is figured out exactly what his issues are and began to address those issues. Even if it took me another year.... I would have kept him, I would have hired someone to work one-on-one with him. I know we see this in professional sports, where you hire someone to go out with the athlete on the weekends and to stay with them in a social setting. I would have hired someone to make sure that Greg Oden was doing exactly what he needed to do, eight hours a day for a year if I had to. I would get my investment back."
With years to reflect on his experiences with the Blazers, Ziegler sounded disappointed. In particular, he found Portland's refusal to provide additional one-on-one medical attention and what he perceived as its insistence on treating Oden like any other player to be confusing.
"Literally, I'm scratching my head as you're talking," Ziegler said. "Greg Oden's injuries are preventable and have been preventable from Day One. Unfortunately in Greg's case, which is the case with many athletes, you get stuck in following protocols, so to speak. By that I mean, if you tear an ACL, every insurance company, every doctor, every physical therapist has certain protocols they want you to follow. None of those protocols focus on addressing what might have contributed to the injury like a muscular imbalance. Right now, we try to do things with athletes in physical therapy and the medical setting, generically. And you can't. Especially when it comes to an athlete or a sports-related injury, you have to get more specific and start to try to figure out the root cause of the problem instead of following protocols."
Further, Ziegler suggested that Blazers owner Paul Allen did not commit sufficient resources and staff to Oden during his recovery period and that the Blazers were -- like many professional organizations -- in a position where staff members feared being catalysts of change.
"I know Portland's medical staff is doing the best they can with the situation and cards that they are dealt," he said. "This is more about a change to the industry that is needed. A change in particular to professional sports. This is more about that than making them look bad. I know they did the best that they can and I know in many cases, when I've dealt with official athletic trainers, the last thing they want to do is be the guy who tried to implement a change and screw something up... Maybe that means the Jay Jensens of the world and other athletic trainers out there who are tasked with trying to keep multimillion dollar athletes on the court or on the field, maybe that means they need more help, maybe they need a bigger staff. Maybe they need more support from ownership and management. That's probably what it really comes down to."
He said on Wednesday that he did not communicate with anyone besides Penn in Portland's management and that he wasn't sure how far up the chain of command his recommendations were reaching.
http://www.blazersedge.com/2012/4/12...nd-zig-ziegler
That's a lot of words to convey a simple fact: Dude is far too injury-prone to mess with.
I'm really disappointed about his decision, 'cause he could have been a big hope for the years after the Duncan era.
That said, I also think that this choice was the worst for him, career oriented.
In S.A he would have been treated like a precious investment for the future, would have been taken care off for every thing and could have become better learning the offensive game from the best possible guy (and God knows if Oden needs to train his offensive game...expecially after three non playing years).
In Miami he instantly become the best option at center from day 1...so, despite all the insurances he received from whoever, he's at a big risk not to be taken care enough.
Imho, Spurs (with a crowded center position consisting in Tim, Splitter, Baynes and Pendergraph all able to play the role) in their current situation, could have given Oden a one year completely dedicated to his on court reabilitation and game improvement (wonderful training environment for a big).
Miami has the highest expectations possible of all the teams involved in his sweeptakes...and ther's no worst situation than this for an injured player just coming back to action 'cause, at the end, if your team needs you, you're supposed to play, despite your risky phisical conditions.
And I don't think that Greg is going to learn something from training neither with Anderson, Anthony or Haslem (all of them rely on defensive and athletic skills) nor from Bosh (totally diferent kind of player).
Imho dumb decision and horrible advise and counseling from his part.
For the Spurs, in any case, a big disappointment, but maybe a blessing in desguise.
First 'cause push our trainers to focus and give time to the improvement of promising players we already have at that position.
Second, 'cause this kind of decision seems to speak from itself about the player willingness to follow the obviously better path...for achiving results, you have to sacrifice your immediate expectations and work on yourself in the rifgt way. That's our culture. Oden, despite been, probably, a wonderful and kind guy, is still following the syrens....
It's far from surprising, Heat were the favorites to get him and it's a good choice for Oden. After all the injuries/surgeries he has had, it would be awesome if eh could be back ad stay healthy. best of luck to him.
For Spurs, it's a little disappointment in a disappointing offseason. You also had to wonder how their ability to offer Oden only a min contract has hurt them. Had Spurs keep Neal instead of going after Belinelli, they would still have $3.4M left on the MLE to offer at Oden. Could it have convinced Oden to joint them? The question will remain up in the air.
Spurs can now fill their 15th roster spot if they want it. At that stage of the summer, there isn't a single player available that could make a difference so Spurs can do whatever they want with that spot. A trade would be the way to really improve the team but trades usually don't happen in August/September.
The signing of Marco Polo looking more and more stupid from day to day, it's incomprehensible How we let Neal go, not only we got a lesser player in Belly, it also cause us to miss on other free agents... But don't worry, we still have Jeff "the next David Robinson" Pendergraph.
Last edited by kobyz; 08-03-2013 at 07:42 AM.
No surprise there.
We all knew it. Why make another Oden thread?
Miami got him, period.
Time to move on because nothing we can do to change it.
Next.
What a ing clown. Greg Oden took 3 years to decide that the cHeat were his destination. He's just like everyone else. Oden rather play for pu$$y and $$$. He rather pass up the opportunity to play and learn alongside the greatest PF of all time in Tim Duncan and a coach that is one of the best at managing player minutes in Gregg Popovich. I hope Oden blows his knees and retires for good.
Now this brings up an interesting topic. How much does the FO's recruitment of players or lack thereof have to do with players passing up the Spurs as a destination all the time? We've never hear of Pop or Timmy recruiting players lately. Who remembers the good old days and Pop's famous words to Michael Finley "for the first time in you career, I want you to be selfish and do what's best for you" or when Tim Duncan and Pop tried to recruit Karl Malone?
Do players pass up the Spurs as a destination because the FO doesn't put much effort into recruitment or are the Spurs really that much of a boring organization/city? Could it be a combination of both? Too bad we'll never have the answers to these questions.
Last edited by TheGreatYacht; 08-03-2013 at 09:34 AM.
This. Except recognise the fact that the FO will almost always pull off a move that rarely appeals to us. Until the season comes in full swing
He'll get some PT in Miami this year. With Pop's offense he probably wouldn't have seen the court until next season. I think Baynes will eat his lunch.
If it was really down to Spurs and Heat, why WOULDN'T you choose the Heat as a center when your compe ion there is much weaker (Haslem & Birdman, neither of whom are really centers) and you may actually get a chance to play? Here you're going to be behind an established three man big rotation, with a developmental guy (Baynes) and a floor spacing shooter (Bonner) in the mix too for minutes. He has skills (though probably rusty as all ) and needs to showcase he can play decent minutes to warrant that next contract. Duncan would be a better teacher here, but he doesn't want to be the fourth or fifth big on the team.
Great signing by Miami, Oden could be the difference for them between threepeat and not threepeat.
i would have been more outraged about an offer of 3.4 mil to a set of knees waiting to become arthritic. juxtaposed, belinelli is the far safer and wiser move.
Well, if you didn't want Oden at that price, you could see it otherwise: Spurs picking Belinelli instead of Neal cost them the ability to offer $3.4M at the FA of your choice.
i would have been more outraged by a 3.4 mil contract for oden than i am by manu's contract. 3.4 mil is a market price that would have suggested a fairly respectable future performance. both of the former are examples of risk being taken for the future performance of a commodity that has too many variables of risk surrounding it. but manu's contract was also based on past performance and even though the risk about his injuries will always be there, manu does not have the anatomical propensity (i.e., oden's misaligned hips) to injury that is not worth investing anything more than 1 mil into.
oden would have taken a permanent spot on the bench for us, at best. at miami, i bet he actually gets to play some minutes. good move for oden. i hope he actually has a decent season.
I get that you didn't want Oden at that price. What I'm saying is, that if Spurs went with Neal instead of Belinelli, they could have offered another free agent (NOT Oden), a salary of $3.4M.
It will actually be hard to beat Birdman's impact for the Heat. He was shooting a ridiculous 70%+ in the playoffs, plus he rebounds and blocks shots. I knew when the Heat picked him up it was an underrated acquisition. I think the Spurs should have gone after him if even to prevent him from playing on the Heat. If the Heat were forced to use Haslem more they would have lost the series.
yes, another free agent would have been a nicer target than oden. but that begs the question: should the spurs have kept neal instead of signing marco.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
