BS Report: Simmons talks to Steve Kerr

[Nikolokolus]

http://c.espnradio.com/audio/469387/simmons_2010-12-01-114527.32.mp3

Lots of Blazers talk. Interesting to get Steve Kerr's take (and Simmons doesn't hate us)

 

[Natebishop3]

http://c.espnradio.com/audio/469387/simmons_2010-12-01-114527.32.mp3

Lots of Blazers talk. Interesting to get Steve Kerr's take (and Simmons doesn't hate us)

No, he doesn't hate us... he's just the schoolyard bully that picks on the kids that he knows will give him a reaction.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

http://c.espnradio.com/audio/469387/simmons_2010-12-01-114527.32.mp3

Lots of Blazers talk. Interesting to get Steve Kerr's take (and Simmons doesn't hate us)

Of course he doesn't; now that we're looking over the precipice, and are miserable, he'll be sympathetic and kind to us now. It's how all sociopaths control their battered mates.

 

[Mediocre Man]

Rightly going after the medical staff and front office IMO

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Rightly going after the medical staff and front office IMO

So, okay, let's go after the medical staff: what would be the charges you'd levy against them? Specific charges, mind, not "being awful".

 

[Minstrel]

So, okay, let's go after the medical staff: what would be the charges you'd levy against them? Specific charges, mind, not "being awful".

How about "failing to stop sucking?" Is that specific enough?

No, actually, I don't know how much blame they deserve. KP made some bets on health, notably with Roy and Oden, and while I think they were good gambles based on the information at the time, both have come up snake eyes. Not necessarily anything the training/medical staff can do about that.

And if Roy and Oden had never had any health issues, there really wouldn't be white-hot anger over the training/medical staff (IMO anyway). While there have been other lingering injuries, it's not clear to me that they've been more than other franchises. The anger is mostly focused on the two catastrophically important health blow-ups of Roy and Oden.

 

[Natebishop3]

How about "failing to stop sucking?" Is that specific enough?

No, actually, I don't know how much blame they deserve. KP made some bets on health, notably with Roy and Oden, and while I think they were good gambles based on the information at the time, both have come up snake eyes. Not necessarily anything the training/medical staff can do about that.

And if Roy and Oden had never had any health issues, there really wouldn't be white-hot anger over the training/medical staff (IMO anyway). While there have been other lingering injuries, it's not clear to me that they've been more than other franchises. The anger is mostly focused on the two catastrophically important health blow-ups of Roy and Oden.

Roy, maybe, but why Oden? Do you think KP knew about Oden's knees when he drafted him?

 

[Nikolokolus]

Roy, maybe, but why Oden? Do you think KP knew about Oden's knees when he drafted him?

I don't think he thought he was going to need microfracture on both knees within 4 years of each other, but there's no denying that there were reports around the draft that certain teams had redflagged his physical. At the time it was easy to see it as nothing more than misinformation or dirty tricks by other teams in some attempt to get him to fall, but in retrospect it looks like there might have been something there.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

Steve Kerr on journalism and articles without sources: "The bar has been lowered". I LOVE IT. JQ and JC are assflakes.

 

[Minstrel]

Roy, maybe, but why Oden? Do you think KP knew about Oden's knees when he drafted him?

No, but he had more health issues than Durant even back then. Even today, I absolutely think drafting Oden, based on the information back then, was the right choice, but I can't deny that there were some less-than-ideal things about Oden's history even to that point.

What's happened since then was not predictable, but may well stem from Oden just having a fragility that we can now, with hindsight, say had manifested in small ways before. This isn't a "Oden was just a ticking time bomb at the time of drafting" argument but more of a "Perhaps everything we now know, going back to before he was drafted, tells us that Oden just has health issues and would have with any medical staff."

I don't know this for certain, but I find it hard to say conclusively that the Blazers' medical staff fucked it all up.

 

[hasoos]

No, but he had more health issues than Durant even back then. Even today, I absolutely think drafting Oden, based on the information back then, was the right choice, but I can't deny that there were some less-than-ideal things about Oden's history even to that point.

What's happened since then was not predictable, but may well stem from Oden just having a fragility that we can now, with hindsight, say had manifested in small ways before. This isn't a "Oden was just a ticking time bomb at the time of drafting" argument but more of a "Perhaps everything we now know, going back to before he was drafted, tells us that Oden just has health issues and would have with any medical staff."

I don't know this for certain, but I find it hard to say conclusively that the Blazers' medical staff fucked it all up.

Well to be honest, IMO the one thing that I look at the most is the time where Greg ballooned up to 315 before his first season. I think a lot about that and the impact it may have had on his body over the long term.

 

[Mediocre Man]

So, okay, let's go after the medical staff: what would be the charges you'd levy against them? Specific charges, mind, not "being awful".

I think as a medical staff and front office, they should have kept Roy out of last years playoffs. We weren't winning anything last year, so why risk it? That is my problem with them.

For Grant Hill to go up to Roy and basically warn him not to play speaks wonders about our staff

 

[BBert]

I think as a medical staff and front office, they should have kept Roy out of last years playoffs. We weren't winning anything last year, so why risk it? That is my problem with them.

For Grant Hill to go up to Roy and basically warn him not to play speaks wonders about our staff

That is the very first thing that came to my mind when Roy had problems right off the bat this year. It' just head-scratchingly stupid to play a guy with bad knees one week after knee surgery.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

I think as a medical staff and front office, they should have kept Roy out of last years playoffs. We weren't winning anything last year, so why risk it? That is my problem with them.

For Grant Hill to go up to Roy and basically warn him not to play speaks wonders about our staff

Was Roy coerced into playing?

 

[Mediocre Man]

Was Roy coerced into playing?

Heck if I know, but as a responsible medical and front office staff, someone should have said no

 

[RoyToy]

It's almost like Jay Jensen let Brandon Roy talk him into it. Actually, that's pretty much what happened. Jay Jensen should know better then that...seriously.

Ultimately though the decision did come down to Paul Allen and he said go for it, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point. Jay Jensen should have shut Brandon Roy down.

 

[oldmangrouch]

So, okay, let's go after the medical staff: what would be the charges you'd levy against them? Specific charges, mind, not "being awful".

That's a little difficult, since too much info is being kept away from us.

Take the case of Williams: was the medical staff negligent in his pre-draft physical, or did a moderate knee injury turn season ending due to the post draft negligence of the trainers? The Drs and the trainers can point fingers at each other, and nobody gets held accountable.

Another example: did the medical staff object to drafting Blair, and then sign off on Claver - who had just had major surgery that appears to have altered his career trajectory? Did they even have input into the decision, or did KP just pull that one out of his rear? We don't know.

Did the medical staff raise red flags on Roy and Oden that were ignored, or did they give them a clean bill of health? Again, we don't know.

BTW, I assume you mean "medical staff" in the literal sense, and are not including the trainers who work with the players every day. IMHO, the case against them is much clearer.

 

[BlazerCaravan]

It's almost like Jay Jensen let Brandon Roy talk him into it. Actually, that's pretty much what happened. Jay Jensen should know better then that...seriously.

Ultimately though the decision did come down to Paul Allen and he said go for it, but it shouldn't have gotten to that point. Jay Jensen should have shut Brandon Roy down.

This is Brandon's Team. He may have gone over Jay's head to get in. Jay can say no all he wants (maybe that's why he has a job still - he did say no, but was voted down), but it ultimately falls to Roy to play or not play.

 

[Minstrel]

Jay Jensen should have shut Brandon Roy down.

It may not be that simple. It really depends on who is working for whom. A lot of team medical staffs don't get final say...they only get to make recommendations. Attributing some kind of final say decision to Jensen, which he used to clear Roy is pure speculation and likely incorrect. The lowest person on the totem pole that I could see having a final say on such matters would be McMillan. It could be that even he doesn't, and it goes to the front office or Allen.

If Roy, undisputed face of the franchise, wanted to play, the decision-makers may well have let him do so even against the wishes of the medical staff. Whether that is how it played out, I don't know. I don't know what Jensen's views on the matter or the medical staff's views on the matter were. But in general, fans seem to feel that the team doctors have full authority over player health related issues and, from what I've read, that's not correct. In fact, in some cases, medical staffs are just there to tell the coach what the coach wants to hear--this has been especially prevalent in the NFL, where medical staffs have routinely cleared players to go back in after a concussion because they knew that's the verdict they were employed to render.

Bottom line: a medical staff is a group of advisors, not decision-makers, and even in that role are only as useful as the franchise wants them to be.