Wizards medical staff issues

[montestewart]

Once again Induveca, well done and much appreciated. It's persuasive without being over-the-top or needlessly confrontational. Thanks for taking the time. True fans may not have much to give other than money for tickets and general team support, but we can sometimes offer an outside-the-organization perspective, and maybe even some information that wasn't making itself known. You've here perhaps offered both.

[Benjammin]

Once again Induveca, well done and much appreciated. It's persuasive without being over-the-top or needlessly confrontational. Thanks for taking the time. True fans may not have much to give other than money for tickets and general team support, but we can sometimes offer an outside-the-organization perspective, and maybe even some information that wasn't making itself known. You've here perhaps offered both.

Absolutely, 100% agree. Thanks Induveca. We can't change the past, but we can learn from the past and hopefully learn not to make the same mistakes again.

[P'Oed]

The Wizards Medical Staff:

[Induveca]

Another response to my last email (concerning the Suns staff) from Mr. Leonsis........

<<Leonsis: Wizards use same team of doctors as Caps; they are well trained and talented.I am secure in that knowledge. Ted>>

I honestly don't have the energy or desire to draw up all the criticisms into a well formed email, but if anyone does I obviously have his attention and happy to respond with all the issues over the years. Well trained and talented is very different from cutting-edge and excessively competent (which is the point I was trying to make with the Suns).

But that sounds far too confrontational more than likely, a nice 10-15 line summary of issues players have had over the past 10-15 years would be nice. If not no worries, we've planted a seed regardless. I'll even sign it as the Wizards RealGM board. Nate, if there is anyway you could get a count of the number of members who have posted on this specific board from the mods, would be pretty cool to sign it as such. Almost like a petition at that point. I'll put my name and "on behalf of the 35,000 Wizard fans on realgm". Then include a link to our board?

Any ideas appreciated I think any further emails should be the last, if he chooses to ignore again......we've done everything we can as fans I think on this issue. And if I'm going too far, let me know. I think a seed is planted regardless for the next mishap.....

[AceDegenerate]

So, is Ted going to simply ignore the 3 injuries the Wizards incurred last night?

No preventative measures are taken, all we do is look to put out fires with our medical staff and this is the result; a team who is constantly injured.

Wall, Blatche and Yi go down in the same game? I didn't see any Bulls get injured last night.

[20MexicanosIn1Van]

So, is Ted going to simply ignore the 3 injuries the Wizards incurred last night?

No preventative measures are taken, all we do is look to put out fires with our medical staff and this is the result; a team who is constantly injured.

Wall, Blatche and Yi go down in the same game? I didn't see any Bulls get injured last night.

Wall feel into Yi, no way that could be prevented.

I guess Rose stepped on Wall and it caused him to sprain his foot? At least that's what CSN was making it seem like. That seems sort of odd and something that shouldn't happen to most players. Due to the medical staff's history, I'm going to assume that it could've been prevented.

So, apparently Blatche has had discomfort in his knee for a while and it finally resulted in a ton of pain. This seems to be a movie we've seen all to often. A player is hurt, but the medical staff lets them play on until there is a much more serious injury. Our shaman staff will never learn.

[montestewart]

It was pretty widely reported that Wall had a sprained ankle before the Sixers game. Perhaps that was erroneous, and maybe Wall just got a typical injury. Or maybe he already had a sprained ankle, was cleared to play, played heavy minutes (because it's the only way the team has a chance) and aggravated a not fully healed ankle or sustained a related injury while favoring an injured ankle.

[Nivek]

So, is Ted going to simply ignore the 3 injuries the Wizards incurred last night?

What would you like for him to do? Because injuries almost never happen, right?

No preventative measures are taken, all we do is look to put out fires with our medical staff and this is the result; a team who is constantly injured.

No preventive measures are taken? Really? What's your source on this? What preventive measures should they be taking?

Wall, Blatche and Yi go down in the same game? I didn't see any Bulls get injured last night.

Carlos Boozer is currently out with a broken hand. Last season, Rose missed 4 games, Hinrich missed 8, Deng missed 12, Noah missed 18. The season before, Deng missed 33 games; Hinrich missed 31. Injuries happen.

[Nivek]

Wall feel into Yi, no way that could be prevented.

I guess Rose stepped on Wall and it caused him to sprain his foot? At least that's what CSN was making it seem like. That seems sort of odd and something that shouldn't happen to most players. Due to the medical staff's history, I'm going to assume that it could've been prevented.

The logic of this escapes me. Because previous Wizards players have gotten injured, you're going to assume that Wall's specific injury could have been prevented.

So, apparently Blatche has had discomfort in his knee for a while and it finally resulted in a ton of pain. This seems to be a movie we've seen all to often. A player is hurt, but the medical staff lets them play on until there is a much more serious injury. Our shaman staff will never learn.

If every NBA player with knee discomfort was sat down, there would be no league. These guys run and jump every day on a hardwood floor probably 300 days a year. Virtually everyone in the league has a sore knee.

[AceDegenerate]

So, is Ted going to simply ignore the 3 injuries the Wizards incurred last night?

What would you like for him to do? Because injuries almost never happen, right?

No preventative measures are taken, all we do is look to put out fires with our medical staff and this is the result; a team who is constantly injured.

No preventive measures are taken? Really? What's your source on this? What preventive measures should they be taking?

Wall, Blatche and Yi go down in the same game? I didn't see any Bulls get injured last night.

Carlos Boozer is currently out with a broken hand. Last season, Rose missed 4 games, Hinrich missed 8, Deng missed 12, Noah missed 18. The season before, Deng missed 33 games; Hinrich missed 31. Injuries happen.

My source is Induveca's e-mail exchange with Ted. He seems to think the system that we have in place is good enough when it is not on par with other team's like Phoenix, who was used specifically in Induveca's example.

I simply wanted to point out he's gone on the record saying our med staff is top notch, and good enough, yet we seem to have some of the worst luck in the league when it comes to injuries (save for Portland who is right there with us).

I'm calling it how I see it, and you can sugar coat it anyway you like, the bottom line is the injuries keep happening to us and they keep happening to players who did not have a serious injury history before showing up here.

[keynote]

^
There's a difference between injury prevention and injury diagnosis/treatment (if I had to take a guess, I'd assume that that the former is the province of the training staff, and the latter falls to the medical staff). It's very hard to diagnose how effective the preventative measures have been, since we don't know who would or would not have been injured if that variable were changed. Luck, style of play, genetics, court conditions, equipment/shoes, etc., all play a role. As such, while I as a fan get frustrated when a Wizards player gets injured, I don't feel like I have enough data to point fingers.

However, when it comes to injury diagnosis/treatment, we do have a number of public miscues to point to as evidence that the medical staff is not infallible. Now, we don't know whether the assumed gold standard medical staffs of the league (DET and PHX) misdiagnose and/or mistreat injuries at the same rate that the Wizards' staff does. What we know/don't know is attributable to the relative skills of the beat reporters and bloggers covering the teams, and the relative culture of openness exhibited by each team - so, if DET happens to have a lazy beat reporter and a "no-leak policy" when it comes to injury treatment, then it might be hard to see how our guys stack up.

Still: while it might be hard to do any benchmarking, we can look at the Wizards' track record of bungled diagnoses and quotes from ex-players and conclude that the medical staff can - and should - be held to a higher standard when it comes to injury diagnosis and treatment. I don't think we can do the same with respect to injury prevention.

[doclinkin]

Interesting question to study though: which teams consistently lose the fewest man-games to injury in the league? Then: is there anything those teams are doing that can be replicated.

[pineappleheadindc]

.

Note: I changed the thread title. See the Hinrich thread for my explanation.

Topic at hand:

-- I think the two most egrigious, on-the-record, issues were with Rip Hamilton's nose and Javaris Crittenton's ankle. In both instances, operations where completely screwed up and had a detrimental impact on both athlete's lives.

[20MexicanosIn1Van]

Wall feel into Yi, no way that could be prevented.

I guess Rose stepped on Wall and it caused him to sprain his foot? At least that's what CSN was making it seem like. That seems sort of odd and something that shouldn't happen to most players. Due to the medical staff's history, I'm going to assume that it could've been prevented.

The logic of this escapes me. Because previous Wizards players have gotten injured, you're going to assume that Wall's specific injury could have been prevented.

So, apparently Blatche has had discomfort in his knee for a while and it finally resulted in a ton of pain. This seems to be a movie we've seen all to often. A player is hurt, but the medical staff lets them play on until there is a much more serious injury. Our shaman staff will never learn.

If every NBA player with knee discomfort was sat down, there would be no league. These guys run and jump every day on a hardwood floor probably 300 days a year. Virtually everyone in the league has a sore knee.

Due to previous history, I think it is a fair assumption. I'm not saying that it's definitely what happened, but if I had to guess, I would guess that it could have been prevented.

As for Blatche, again due to history I am not willing to give the medical staff the benefit of the doubt. That's really what it comes down to. Obviously no one knows.

I don't know whose responsibility it is, but it seems that the re-occurring problem is players coming back from injury too soon or not sitting out games when they should be. Is that the medical staff, training staff, coaches, individual players, a combination of some? I don't know. But whoever is making these decisions is repeatedly making mistakes.

[Induveca]

For what it's worth I'm happy Leonsis at least heard the complaint from us through my emails.

I used Phoenix' staff as a best practice example......and the staff the Wiz use is the same from the 60s era. Literally same guy who operated on Wes Unseld's shaky knees still leads the majority of Wiz diagnoses.

Frightening.

[zenvibes]

big shout out to the fans here for calling this to ted's attention. an evenbigger shout out to a team in owner...in the cuban mold that actually answers them, This can only be good.

Seems like the hopkins team is the way to go with them being right there....world class and often thought of as the best in medical field.

[montestewart]

big shout out to the fans here for calling this to ted's attention. an evenbigger shout out to a team in owner...in the cuban mold that actually answers them, This can only be good.

Seems like the hopkins team is the way to go with them being right there....world class and often thought of as the best in medical field.

Agreed there. I'm not going to get discouraged if Leonsis doesn't immediately wholly adopt my point of view on things. It's an acquired taste. That he reads fan email and answers it tells me he's open to hearing out alternative perspectives. That's got to be a step up. If there really is a training staff/medical treatment issue, the seed has been planted, even if the response isn't immediate.

[closg00]

Deleted

[keynote]

^ Explain to me how Ernie and the Medical Staff was snookered because MIN passed on Brandon Roy due to his balky knees.

[closg00]

^ Explain to me how Ernie and the Medical Staff was snookered because MIN passed on Brandon Roy due to his balky knees.

Corrected. I mixed up Foy and Roy because they both had health problems.