Blake undergoes another knee surgery

The Moose · Post #1 » by **The Moose** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:24 am

Didn’t see it posted anywhere? Not sure how much it means in the grand scheme of things, but I guess it certainly doesn’t help

whitehops · Post #2 » by **whitehops** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:31 am

it's just a clean up, which was to be expected after his knee acted up to end the season.

i think the recovery is like a month or so so he'll have tons of time to get healthy and have a relatively full off season to work on his game.

DBC10 · Post #3 » by **DBC10** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:39 am

I believe he's gotten this done basically yearly. There was one in 2016 if I remember when he was with the Clips.

vege · Post #4 » by **vege** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 3:11 am

He said he's not gonna miss any extra time, other than his regular scheduled rest after the season, so this is irrelevant. He will have his 2nd consecutive healthy offseason, last season he became an above average high volume 3 point shooter, I wonder what he will add to his game this offseason.

DetroitPistons · Post #5 » by **DetroitPistons** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:28 am

Nothing to worry about at all. He will have a full offseason to train.

_Und3r][D4wg_ · Post #6 » by **_Und3r][D4wg_** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:22 am

Getting this minor surgery out of the way at the earliest possible time was probably the only beneficial consequence of getting swept in the first round... The healing process & rehab should be fully completed for Blake by the time training camp starts.

Blake is one of the hardest & smartest workers during off-season... Aside from strength & stamina training to increase resilience against injury, expect him to work on increasing his efficiency from the perimeter, improve his playmaking/ability to get more involvement from more teammates, get comfortable with moving & producing off-the-ball, mentor guys to help them raise their competitive mentality to the next level, and maybe even improve his defense.

If Casey can manage Blake's PT down to 34 mpg next season (with the occasional DNP-rest on certain B2Bs) while at same time unburdening him a bit on the offensive end, then Blake should stay fairly healthy all the way into the playoffs.

Kilo · Post #7 » by **Kilo** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 12:12 pm

Playoff gate was that important I guess rather than having it during ASG break and missing in-season time.

Manocad · Post #8 » by **Manocad** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:34 pm

_Und3r][D4wg_ wrote:Getting this minor surgery out of the way at the earliest possible time was probably the only beneficial consequence of getting swept in the first round... The healing process & rehab should be fully completed for Blake by the time training camp starts.

Blake is one of the hardest & smartest workers during off-season... Aside from strength & stamina training to increase resilience against injury, expect him to work on increasing his efficiency from the perimeter, improve his playmaking/ability to get more involvement from more teammates, get comfortable with moving & producing off-the-ball, mentor guys to help them raise their competitive mentality to the next level, and maybe even improve his defense.

If Casey can manage Blake's PT down to 34 mpg next season (with the occasional DNP-rest on certain B2Bs) while at same time unburdening him a bit on the offensive end, then Blake should stay fairly healthy all the way into the playoffs.

[insert Jim Mora voice here]
Playoffs?!?

Billl · Post #9 » by **Billl** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 1:53 pm

Not sure why people aren't more concerned about it. Yes, it's minor surgery. Most people who have it recover and go on to have no more problems. But this isn't blake's first time getting his knee scoped. He's not in the group that recovered and had no more issues. His knee issues are something that are likely to come back and impact him in the future even if he makes a "full" recovery this off season.

DBC10 · Post #10 » by **DBC10** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 4:43 pm

Yeah, this is why I'd rather trade high on him than later on when his age really starts to show with that near max contract. He's too injury prone for my liking, and always seems to break down or have hiccups at the wrong time. It's been consistently shown in the last five years. The last full season he played was in 2013.

That's a lot of miles for a former high flying dunker...

But if the org wanted to shed salary this off-season and was looking at our two biggest contracts (Dre & BG), hands down I'd choose Blake over Dre, should the move come to that. I think we can have a mini reset building on Blake and aggressively pursuing a Conley or Jrue.

djsunyc · Post #11 » by **djsunyc** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 6:55 pm

with the nature of his contract - he needs to on load management or else casey will play him 35+ mins a night again.

Billl · Post #12 » by **Billl** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 7:27 pm

djsunyc wrote:with the nature of his contract - he needs to on load management or else casey will play him 35+ mins a night again.

It's up to management to sign some youngish bigs who will actually play hard. We spent most of the season without a backup PF on the active roster and a 34 yr old traditional backup center as our 3rd big.

King Bugs · Post #13 » by **King Bugs** » Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:30 pm

djsunyc wrote:with the nature of his contract - he needs to on load management or else casey will play him 35+ mins a night again.

Unless we add some major offensive talent to the roster (and I'm not sure we'll be able to do that with our cap situation and lack of assets) we're going to have to run Blake into the ground again if the goal is to be competitive.

buzzkilloton · Post #14 » by **buzzkilloton** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 12:07 am

King Bugs wrote:
djsunyc wrote:with the nature of his contract - he needs to on load management or else casey will play him 35+ mins a night again.

Unless we add some major offensive talent to the roster (and I'm not sure we'll be able to do that with our cap situation and lack of assets) we're going to have to run Blake into the ground again if the goal is to be competitive.

Thats the problem with doing load management with Blake. We finished 2 games up on the heat/hornets. We dont have the talent to give Blake the Leonard treatment. Since the goal around here is PLAYOFFS or its not a successful season(4-0 1st round lets go) hes going to get ran into the ground till he breaks down. We cant afford to let him rest half of what Leonard did and we cant afford him to have the standard injury he usually has and make the coveted PLAYOFFS.

pistonsbball · Post #15 » by **pistonsbball** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 1:18 am

I think we played him too many minutes early on in the season. He was leading the league at like 38 for a while. Should be playing max 32 a game and if we can't make the playoffs with that then so be it.

DetroitPistons · Post #16 » by **DetroitPistons** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 2:17 am

pistonsbball wrote:I think we played him too many minutes early on in the season. He was leading the league at like 38 for a while. Should be playing max 32 a game and if we can't make the playoffs with that then so be it.

Remember in January or February sometime when we started running plays for other guys and letting Griffin play off the ball more and facilitate? Not only did that lead to us playing our best basketball of the season but I think it would lead to less load of Griffin over the course of the season. We can limit his minutes by a couple more per game but I think continuing to play that style of basketball would do wonders for him as well.

_Und3r][D4wg_ · Post #17 » by **_Und3r][D4wg_** » Fri Apr 26, 2019 9:18 am

Manocad wrote:
_Und3r][D4wg_ wrote:Getting this minor surgery out of the way at the earliest possible time was probably the only beneficial consequence of getting swept in the first round... The healing process & rehab should be fully completed for Blake by the time training camp starts.

Blake is one of the hardest & smartest workers during off-season... Aside from strength & stamina training to increase resilience against injury, expect him to work on increasing his efficiency from the perimeter, improve his playmaking/ability to get more involvement from more teammates, get comfortable with moving & producing off-the-ball, mentor guys to help them raise their competitive mentality to the next level, and maybe even improve his defense.

If Casey can manage Blake's PT down to 34 mpg next season (with the occasional DNP-rest on certain B2Bs) while at same time unburdening him a bit on the offensive end, then Blake should stay fairly healthy all the way into the playoffs.

[insert Jim Mora voice here]
Playoffs?!?

Jim Mora

My hope here is that, at a minimum, we won't get any worse during the off-season. I mean, had we not endured too many brutal games with Jose Calderon running (ruining?) the bench unit, we could've won a few more games before Ish came back... And a couple or so more Ws to add after the ASB had knee troubles not bogged down Blake. Without those two issues, we would've ended up closer to 5th seed, with some momentum & confidence on our side as we went into the playoffs.

Despite very little wiggle room in the Piston's pockets, I'm expecting the FO to engineer incremental improvements in our roster through smart trades and under-the-radar acquisitions.

After a full season with the team under his belt, Casey -- slow & conservative with adjustments as he is -- should have the benefit of hindsight & time this off-season to make better sense of where & why we underachieved, and figure out how to better utilize a retooled roster.

The other lottery teams will be looking to improve in the off-season as well, but I'm hoping that the Pistons will have done enough to not only avoid being leapfrogged, but perhaps move up the ladder as well.

I'm sorry... I'm such an optimist. :biggrin: