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This quote from the Yahoo Wiz team report caught my eye.

Antonio Daniels will not have wrist surgery after all on his injured left wrist. The reason: If he did, he would not be ready for the start of the regular season.

Never trust the Wiz medical staff. This unattended wrist injury puts a big question mark on our PG depth to start the season. D-Wade had to have surgery and shut down, Kobe is looking at surgery for his pinky. You can't just hope-away injuries.
http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=A ... eam_report

As many times as the Wizards/Boulez medical staff have messed things up, I guess I should never be surprised. When did our season end, four months ago? I realize that it is often a struggle between the player saying they don't want to have surgery and the medical staff saying they need it, but I sincerely hope that AD is healthy and ready to play a full season.

We know how this movie ends.

AD, of all players, is bound to fall on that wrist and reaggravate it. I hope that Dee is ready to play heavy minutes, since he's backing up not one but two potentially gimpy PGs.

Is it time to break out the Anti-KoolAid?

lupin wrote:Is it time to break out the Anti-KoolAid?

What do you mean?

What is it going to take for Pollin to fire this medical staff? Do one of our players need to die? Is that what needs to happen?

miller31time wrote:What is it going to take for Pollin to fire this medical staff? Do one of our players need to die? Is that what needs to happen?

Yeah this is getting too far. Time to fire them.

The season hasn't started and we area already hearing about possible injuries

This team

Ummm...so yeah....Go Dee Brown???

miller31time wrote:What is it going to take for Pollin to fire this medical staff? Do one of our players need to die? Is that what needs to happen?

Didn't Gil passout or something from taking some combo of medications a few years back?

It's only a matter time. I'm not sure even the death of a player would be enough to get a new medical staff. (Just imagine if Grant Hill played for the Wiz instead the Magic a few years back. It would have been curtains for Hill if he got that staff infection in his ankle under the non-watchful eyes of the Wiz medical staff) If Pollin wouldn't fire the worst GM in the history of the NBA, he won't fire the worst medical staff in all of professional sports. The staff isn't going to change until Leonsis takes over.

But for real, the AD situation is just plain embarrassing and incredibly problematic in terms of the upcoming season. What the hell have they been doing the last few months?

I don't feel all that confident about Dee Brown seeing major minutes after watching him in Summer League.

Dat2U wrote:But for real, the AD situation is just plain embarrassing and incredibly problematic in terms of the upcoming season. What the hell have they been doing the last few months?

Exactly what I was thinking. I was under the impression that he'd already had the surgery like the week after the Cleveland series. I remember Buck saying during games that the wrist would need surgery in the summer but he was gutting it out so he could finish the season. Why would they wait until it's almost September to make a decision?

The worst part is that AD still needs the surgery. This isn't going to go away. At some point he has to get it fixed. Again, if they knew this all along, why wait until it's almost time for training camp to say "Hmmm, maybe we should think about operating on this thing. Oh wait, we can't because the season's about to start." Completely ridiculous.

Every year, it seems like someone on the Wizards is waiting until the eve of the season to make a decision about surgery. Etan. Pech (if memory serves). Jarvis did this for a few seasons too, didn't he?

It's as if the medical staff only knows how to prescribe time at the end of the offseason, e.g., "let's give it a few months, and see how it responds to rest," etc. "Time heals all wounds." Prescribing time is the equivalent of IT support telling you to reboot the computer--sometimes it helps, but they're not really adding any value.

LyricalRico wrote:

Dat2U wrote:But for real, the AD situation is just plain embarrassing and incredibly problematic in terms of the upcoming season. What the hell have they been doing the last few months?

Exactly what I was thinking. I was under the impression that he'd already had the surgery like the week after the Cleveland series. I remember Buck saying during games that the wrist would need surgery in the summer but he was gutting it out so he could finish the season. Why would they wait until it's almost September to make a decision?

The worst part is that AD still needs the surgery. This isn't going to go away. At some point he has to get it fixed. Again, if they knew this all along, why wait until it's almost time for training camp to say "Hmmm, maybe we should think about operating on this thing. Oh wait, we can't because the season's about to start." Completely ridiculous.

It appears as though:
A. The medical staff did nothing
B. The medical staff let it go too long, brought it up with AD at some-point, but then it was too close to camp to do the surgery
C. They just let AD make the decision on the surgery

I can't think of a scenario in-which someone should not be fired for this. There is a real problem within the organization with-respect to how injuries are managed.

LyricalRico wrote:

Exactly what I was thinking. I was under the impression that he'd already had the surgery like the week after the Cleveland series. I remember Buck saying during games that the wrist would need surgery in the summer but he was gutting it out so he could finish the season. Why would they wait until it's almost September to make a decision?

As much as I hate to come to the defense of the hated Zards medical team, I do have to ask one question: Do we really know when the decision was made as to whether or not AD needed surgery? The decision could have been made in May or June. All we know is that it was reported in August.

There appears to be contradictory information out there. According to Ivan's blog in June.

One of the readers had a question about Antonio Daniels and that sore left wrist. The word I've heard is that upon getting it checked out, Daniels did not require surgery.

The more recent Yahoo Team Report from August 15 says:

Player Notes:
•Antonio Daniels will not have wrist surgery after all on his injured left wrist. The reason: If he did, he would not be ready for the start of the regular season.
• Etan Thomas, a workout regular at Verizon Center this summer, said his sternum—which had to be cracked open for his heart surgery last October, has finally healed. To emphasize his point, he balled up his fist and pounded his chest twice.

So it sounds like the surgery was reccomended, but Daniels made the call. Hmmm

closg00 wrote:There appears to be contradictory information out there. According to Ivan's blog in June.

One of the readers had a question about Antonio Daniels and that sore left wrist. The word I've heard is that upon getting it checked out, Daniels did not require surgery.

The more recent Yahoo Team Report from August 15 says:

Player Notes:
•Antonio Daniels will not have wrist surgery after all on his injured left wrist. The reason: If he did, he would not be ready for the start of the regular season.

So it sounds like the surgery was reccomended, but Daniels made the call. Hmmm

Sounds to me like the decision was made in June that AD didn't need surgery and the folks at Yahoo Wiz got it wrong.

DCZards wrote:

closg00 wrote:There appears to be contradictory information out there. According to Ivan's blog in June.

One of the readers had a question about Antonio Daniels and that sore left wrist. The word I've heard is that upon getting it checked out, Daniels did not require surgery.

The more recent Yahoo Team Report from August 15 says:

Player Notes:
•Antonio Daniels will not have wrist surgery after all on his injured left wrist. The reason: If he did, he would not be ready for the start of the regular season.

So it sounds like the surgery was reccomended, but Daniels made the call. Hmmm

Sounds to me like the decision was made in June that AD didn't need surgery and the folks at Yahoo Wiz got it wrong.

DCZards wrote:

closg00 wrote:There appears to be contradictory information out there. According to Ivan's blog in June.

One of the readers had a question about Antonio Daniels and that sore left wrist. The word I've heard is that upon getting it checked out, Daniels did not require surgery.

The more recent Yahoo Team Report from August 15 says:

Player Notes:
•Antonio Daniels will not have wrist surgery after all on his injured left wrist. The reason: If he did, he would not be ready for the start of the regular season.

So it sounds like the surgery was reccomended, but Daniels made the call. Hmmm

Sounds to me like the decision was made in June that AD didn't need surgery and the folks at Yahoo Wiz got it wrong.

Important distinction here, NEED vs WANT. The more recent report said that "Daniels will not have wrist surgery ". It doesn't say he doesn't NEED it, but that a decision (by-whom?) was made NOT to have the surgery because of the timing; that would tip the scales on the side of NEEDING the surgery, but opting not to.

closg00 wrote:Important distinction here, NEED vs WANT. The more recent report said that "Daniels will not have wrist surgery ". It doesn't say he doesn't NEED it, but that a decision (by-whom?) was made NOT to have the surgery because of the timing; that would tip the scales on the side of NEEDING the surgery, but opting not to.

That's the impression I got as well. If surgery was not required in May/June, there's no need to report that he's not going to have surgery in August/September. The fact that they felt the need to report it tells me that it's still an issue. I'm sorry but this medical staff's history prohbits them from getting the benefit of the doubt.

My guess would be that AD was willing to go under the knife in May but the Wiz docs said he didn't need surgery. Now as he's trying to get in shape for training camp he discovers that the wrist hasn't gotten any better. He goes back to them and now they say "Ooops, looks like you need surgery" but now AD doesn't want it because it would mean he would miss a month or two of the season.

closg00 wrote:

Important distinction here, NEED vs WANT. The more recent report said that "Daniels will not have wrist surgery ". It doesn't say he doesn't NEED it, but that a decision (by-whom?) was made NOT to have the surgery because of the timing; that would tip the scales on the side of NEEDING the surgery, but opting not to.

I have no idea whether or not AD needs surgery on his wrist. I'm going to assume he doesn't.

For the time being, I'm going with the report of the guy who gets paid by one of the country's top newspapers to cover the Wizards (Ivan) and not that of a nameless reporter on an Internet site.

LyricalRico wrote:
The fact that they felt the need to report it tells me that it's still an issue. .

Keep in mind that the "they" you're talking about is a nameless Internet reporter and not the Wizards.