Sixerscan wrote:Black Mage wrote:Sixerscan wrote:There's only 3 back to backs between now and 1/1 so there should be minimal load management in the first chunk of the year.
Assuming health of course like if George isn't ready to go a week from now he's not playing.
Do think both of them (and Lowry and Gordon) will sit also out a few random games in the beginning.
Following the wrong team if you don't want load management talk lol. Get used to it.
The only reason Joel should be "load managed" is if his knee is in a degenerative state. Last year, he tore his meniscus not because of a B2B or being played too many minutes; but because a player fell atop his leg. In the playoffs, he's injured his knee because a player falls into his leg.
No amount of "load management" is going to remove that risk. Probably the best protection is having an "enforcer" on your team so other teams' players know you try to go low on Joel and our guy is taking out your star too. It's old school mentality, but I've seen enough, especially in the playoffs, to know I've seen enough opposing players try to take out Joel's legs.
I think they're actually pretty sure he tore his meniscus before that game and Kuminga falling on it was just what inflamed it to the point that they felt a need to get an MRI? He missed the Denver game right before that and then spent that entire GSW game walking around like a mummy. He'd been having knee stuff for a while, I think it first came up in that Knicks game earlier that month.
IDK about degenerative but he's had multiple snips of his meniscus at this point it might be. Or they see that new extension and want to hold off on it becoming so for as long as possible.
The other part of it is they're making him wear the brace all the time now they're clearly worried about something happening.
It was absolutely in that blowout loss to the Knicks where he tore it. He banged knees with Julius Randle.