Take these broken wings. I need your hands to come and heal me once again.
Sad news GSoM. Sad news.
If you have yet to hear the 411, it looks like Brandan Wright has suffered another shoulder injury, his second in 10 months. Before you hit up the jump for some analysis, peep the linkage (if you have not already).
* Shoulder injury could sideline Wright 6 months [Yahoo! Sports]
* Brandan Wright’s second shoulder injury in 10 months: Could surgery be necessary? [48 Minutes]
* Report: Brandan Wright hurts left shoulder, MRI to come [48 Minutes]
* Don't forget about Wright [SFGate]
* Brandan Wright, semi-forgotten Warriors power forward [Talking Points]
Rewinding 2008-2009: Brandan Wright
A year after spending the majority of the season on the bench, Brandan Wright was given his chance to shine. He had a great training camp and proved to Nellie that he should get extended minutes. And he did.
No doubt about it - BWright showed HUGE improvements from his rookie season. He was learning how to score and rebound and EARNED his way into starting minutes. The future was looking bright for BWright and that silly ol' extensively debated J-Rich trade was beginning to be justifiable. Heck, ask Sleepy Freud - his PER 36 were very very nice.
And then...this game happened...
Recap: Warriors 106, Lakers 114 - So Close, Yet So Far.
Wright's Injury. AWFUL. Not only does it suck that Wright has a partially dislocated shoulder, it sucks that no one seemed to see his arm dangling from his socket until he got bowled over on the next possession. Someone foul someone. Call a timeout. Throw a freaking chair! STOP THE GAME AND LET THIS GUY OFF OF THE COURT! Not only did it lead to three points we could have prevented, that blow he took could have made his injury more serious. Wack.
Brandan Wright. Right up until his arm started flailing about like a limp noodle (gross) he looked great. Boards on one end (he had 9 in 12 minutes!) and strong finishes on the other. Our best goes out to him. We don't have a lot of energetic big guys to go around here and I was really looking forward to more of him tonight. Good thing he's got Tommy Abdenour looking after him. Best in the business.
Great. The guy's just getting good, 9 boards in 12 minutes good, and some Caveman (see below) looking fellow decided to seperate his shoulder. Excellent.
Now of course there was some good to come this, namely Anthony Randolph's development, but it still sucks having the #8 draft pick of 2007 go down for an extended period of time.
Long story short - it took a while for BWright to recover, he tried to come back near the end of the season, but he wasn't fully healed. Nellie shut him down and went with our 7 man rotation dream team.
Predicting 2009-2010: Brandan Wright
INJURED.
Yeah this basically sucks. Although nothing is confirmed since he was injured on Friday (the MRI is pending for Monday) we can all infer the potential injuries and we can all infer the potential causes.
There are two things take from this recent injury.
1. The basketball Gods dislike us.
How can I make this conclusion you ask? Right when Brandan was begining to develop into a true Warrior (whatever that means), he gets slapped in the arm and injures his shoulder. Now I have no idea how it happened since I wasn't there, but I'm assuming it was intentional or malicious. Furthermore, a "slap" in the arm leading to injury isn't a great sign.
What's even worse? Coach Nelson was noticing BWright's new muscular figure and newly developed skills.
I’ve had better days," Warriors coach Don Nelson said after Saturday’s practice. "He might be the best player in camp or right up there. He went down and that made it a bad day today. But we wish him the best and hope he has a good result."
Nothing is for sure, but it's a big possibility that Brandan will be out for 6-10 months. Do the calculations, that's the season.
2. I was right.
I love those three words in every possible permutation.
A few months ago, I detailed BWright's shoulder injury.
Anatomy 101
Alright fellas, here’s the difference.
"* Dislocated shoulder. In this injury, a fall or blow causes the top of your arm bone to pop out of the shoulder socket.
Unlike a lot of joints in your body, your elbow, for instance, the shoulder is incredibly mobile. You can twist and move your upper arm in almost any direction. But there’s a price for this ease of movement. The shoulder joint is inherently unstable, prone to slipping out of place.
In severe cases of dislocated shoulder, the tissue and nerves around the shoulder joint get damaged. If you keep dislocating your shoulder, you could wind up with chronic instability and weakness.
* Separated shoulder. Despite the name, this injury doesn’t directly affect the shoulder joint. Instead, a fall or blow tears one of the ligaments that connects the collarbone to shoulder blade.
Since it’s no longer anchored, the collarbone may move out of position and push against the skin near the top of your shoulder. Although separated shoulders can cause deformity, people usually recover fully with time."At the end of the day a dislocated shoulder usually has more long term repercussions than a separated shoulder. Each time a joint is dislocated, it becomes easier and easier to get knocked out of place at a later time.
Brandan Wright had a shoulder dislocation. This is not good. The term "injury-prone" can be tossed around with him since that injury can be reoccurring. Think about his rebounding abilities…he can easily get knocked by someone bigger and BAM it pops out again.
This would not (or will not) be a problem if Brandan was bigger. Remember back in the day when everyone was complaining that he was stick and needed to put on muscle? This is the reason why. Injuries like this rarely happen to big beefy guys like Zach Randolph, Eddy Curry, Shaq, Tim Duncan….BIG MUSCLE = good for PFs!
Big ups to my anatomy class!
Let's revisit that.
INJURED.
Sorry, too easy.
But in all seriousness, a shoulder dislocation is one of those injuries that you can call being "injury prone." It does weaken the joint and lead to further injury if it is stressed by a big force - say, a big guy trying to block you. Now, I don't know how the "slap" happened in practice on Friday, but I'm assuming it was by someone bigger than him. (I think someone mentioned it being Anthony Randolph, but I don't know for sure.) Either way, it happened, and it shows that he does have recurring shoulder problems.
Now there's one obvious question that comes up - how did he get reinjured after bulking up? I'm no doctor, but two things pop in my head as a bioengineer.
- Yes, he bulked up, but it might have been in a case of too much too fast. If you add a bunch of muscle quickly, you basically didn't do it naturally. It's pretty physically hard to toss on 10 pounds of muscle (or more) in a month without the use of steriods or a bunch of protein. He had a small frame prior to the extensive working out and it might not be able to support it all initially.
- The injury at his shoulder joint never fully healed. If this is the case (which is pretty possible) little things (like a slap) would set it off. When you're doing muscle training and just trying to bulk up, if you're doing it properly (which he probably was because he had a trainer present), the shoulder muscles were isolated. This means abnormal movements or things that would aggravate the joint would not have occured in the muscle training, thus, it would be possible for him to add on pounds.
So what does it all mean? Again, we still have see what the MRI amounts to, but realsistically the injury will have a big impact on the Warriors picking up his 4th year option.
What do you think?
Polling GSoM: Should the Warriors pick up Brandan Wright's 4th year option?
My guess? If he's out for the season, he's out of the Warriors.