Archive for the ‘Portland Trail Blazers’ Category

What is even going on any more?

From Chris Broussard:

Sources say Brandon Roy to announce medical retirement due to degenerative knees, possibly as soon as today

Now this is from Chris Broussard, the guy who maintained LeBron James was going to Chicago, even on the day of “The Decision,” then changed his story at the last minute because he got a tip, so just wait until it actually happens to believe it’s happening. Let’s take this with all the grains of salt until Brandon Roy is announcing in his weirdly high-pitched voice that he is really retiring.

But seriously, between this and Chris Paul being traded and then not traded, it’s been a weird 24 hours in the league. It’s right up there with that time Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson went “Punch Drunk Love” on a few fans’ faces. That was probably still weirder but I think we can all agree that those two guys going nuts is not the most far-fetched thing in NBA history. These two things are just mind-blowing to have happened in such quick succession.

That being said, it’s easy to understand why Brandon Roy would retire. At this point, his knees are made of balsa wood, hardened toothpaste, old rubberbands and those wires you use to hang greenery during the Christmas season. His knees are jealous of Greg Oden’s knees.

Plus, this wouldn’t be the first time the Trail Blazers have convinced a cap killer to retire when he still was able to play in the NBA, word to Darius Miles. If he’s a medical retirement, he still gets all the money from that giant contract he signed in 2010, so it’s not the worst thing in the world for him.

Of course, just like Darius Miles, Roy could retire and then decide that at 27 he’s not ready to be done playing professional basketball for the rest of his life. If he comes back and some other team signs him — and he plays for 10 games — the Trail Blazers are on the hook for his salary, which would be the only thing more hilarious than paying a max salary to 2011 Brandon Roy in the first place.

But yeah — Brandon Roy might be retiring. Everything is going nuts. Any minute now, I assume we’ll be finding out that Dwight Howard has been traded to the moon for a bunch of space rocks or something else that’s totally bananahands.

Please advise….

Arvydas Sabonis has had a pretty weird 2011. In April, he was inducted in to the Naismith Hall of Fame, giving everyone a chance to reflect upon his career and come to the same conclusions that they had decades earlier — that he was a once-in-a-lifetime talent who came to the NBA way too late. So that was cool for him.

On the other end of the things that could happen to a person spectrum, he had a heart attack last week, which isn’t surprising when you consider he 7-foot-3, more than 300 pounds, and hasn’t been a competitive basketball player for seven years. Still, at just 46, Sabonis is way too young to be having heart attacks, even if he’s got a few strikes against him on the health front.

But that’s not the bad part. (Well, that is still probably actually the bad part, but you will see what I mean after this next sentence.) The bad part is that his heart attack is going to prevent him from doing most of his favorite things. From AFP:

“The doctors told me, ‘You can’t smoke, you can’t drink, you can’t play basketball.’ So of the things I like, only sex is left,” Sabonis told Lithuanian media at the clinic in his hometown, the central city of Kaunas.

To be fair, if you are only going to be able to do one thing that you like after having a heart attack, sex is a pretty great one thing to be able to do. The best thing, really. Don’t get me wrong, playing basketball is incredible, but it is not having sex. You guys know what I’m talking about.

Not to mention, now that he’s not going to be smoking and drinking, he’s probably going to get very healthy. And now that he’s not going to be playing any more basketball, he’ll have a lot of free time to get learn a new hobby. Maybe he can take up knitting, which I am told is very relaxing. Or maybe he will become the world’s best pinochle player, an activity that should definitely be OK with cardiologists everywhere. If he’s dying to keep doing basketball stuff, he should just get NBA 2K12, which is the next best thing to playing. Heck, there might even be a digital Arvydas Sabonis hidden somewhere deep within that game. It has everything.

Let’s all hope that Arvydas gets better really quickly. He’s already left intensive care, which is a good start. He might not be able to do everything he likes when he’s back to full strength, but at least he’ll have at least one thing that can keep him happy.

(via Blazers Edge)