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Originally posted by CableKC
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The Rules of Pacers Digest
Hello everyone,
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"
"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?"
In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.
A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.
Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.
Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.
Rule #1
Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:
"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"
"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"
"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"
"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"
"He/she is just delusional"
"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"
"I'm going to take a moment to point and
/ laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*""Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good?
"In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.
We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.
Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.
That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.
A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.
There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.
Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.
In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.
Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.
If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!
All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.
Rule #2
If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.
The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.
The right places to do so are:
A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.
B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.
If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.
Rule #3
If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.
When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:
A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.
B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.
To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!
Rule #4
Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.
Rule #5
When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.
An example:
If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:
http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star
Rule #6
We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.
The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.
Rule #7
Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.
It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).
We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).
However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.
Rule #8
We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.
Rule #9
Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.
Rule #10
We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
Rule #11
Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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I worry about this too. He has some Hansbrough in him when he gets the tunnel vision with like 3 bodies around hiim, where he just starts throwing his body into people haha. It isn't super effective, but that attitude in general leads to him being the player he is, so I take it pretty happily. The thing with him is that he really isn't as big as a lot of guys. When I see him playing that way with guys with much wider and bigger looking frames, it does worry me to an extent. -
Here's an article on the matter that even specifically mentions Domas:
Source: https://basketball.realgm.com/analys...Cant-Get-WorseBlake Griffin has been in some unnamed other phase of his career for a while now. There was a point, somewhere around the middle of the just-past decade, when it became clear that he was his generation’s Vince Carter: gobsmacking what-the-hell-is-this-dude-up-to feats in his early 20s, then a protracted period of decline. This isn’t the same thing as falling off a cliff. Carter averaged at least 20 points per game until he hit age 33, but as soon as his knees started to deteriorate, he belonged to a different phylum of player. He was no longer a sensation.
The same has been true of Blake, who arrived in the NBA as an evolutionary lovechild of Charles Barkley and Larry Johnson and then shrunk into the role of a very nice forward who could score pretty efficiently and handle the ball but also, crucially, struggled to keep himself on the court. In the context of his first few years in Los Angeles, the back half of his Clipper tenure was a disappointment made doubly sad by the fact that his primary shortcomings weren’t his fault. You can’t control the readiness with which joints cooperate, or how high you jump.
Blake actually had quite a year with the Pistons last season, if not coming to terms with his physical limitations then learning to operate within thinner margins. He got to display the robust problem-solving aspect of his game that’s always been there but was understandably relegated to the background when he was powering past and dunking over opponents. He carried a definitionally mediocre Detroit team into the playoffs, straining heroically through the winter and spring months, and then once they got there, he was almost too broken down to play.
His left knee gave up on him at the end of an impressive but grueling season. On April 7th, before a tilt against the Hornets in which Blake shot 5-for-18 and was noticeably feeling less than himself, Dwane Casey said the Pistons’ star was going to push on despite his injury. According to Detroit’s medical staff, he couldn’t do further damage to the knee by playing on it, which would seemingly be contradicted by the fact that Blake bounced in and out of the lineup, even missing the Pistons’ first two playoff games, for the remainder of the year. But anyway, he toughed it out the best he could, delaying knee surgery until the summer.
Apparently that surgery didn’t accomplish much, because Blake placed himself back on the operating table a week-and-a-half ago. He’s out indefinitely and will rehab until at least the beginning on next season, and though we never know the outcomes of these things for sure, the prognosis for a soon-to-be 31-year-old Blake, coming off two knee operations, looks grim.
Did he do any extra damage in those final weeks of last season? It’s impossible to say, but the idea that an injury can’t get worse, which coaches, trainers, and sometimes even players claim with infuriating regularity, is disingenuous bunk. Kevin Durant played through what the Warriors kept insisting was a balky calf in the Finals, which couldn’t get worse, and ended up tearing his Achilles. Kevon Looney broke his collarbone in the same series and missed only one game, because it couldn’t get worse. He’s been laid up with an assortment of health problems for most of this season. John Wall, for the bulk of 15-16, was dealing with bruised ribs, a hip issue, and, most problematically, what he called “a fat-*** sprain” on his right ankle. He said the sprain couldn’t get any worse—except for, you know, the fact that it wasn’t healing. He got surgery on both knees the following offseason and, at age 29, hasn’t played a single game since tearing his Achilles in December of 2018.
This isn’t to suggest that playing through one injury always begets a greater one. In late 2017, James Harden juddered and feinted away on a sore knee that couldn’t get worse and it seems like it didn’t. It’s hard to draw a clear relationship between Looney’s current injury issues—neuropathic aches in his hamstrings, abdominal pain—and him trudging through the Finals one-armed and in visible anguish, other than to say that trauma like that can’t be good for the body overall. Medical science, which practically nobody writing about basketball is versed in anyway, is inexact and injury situations are fluid. We are all making guesses, highly educated or otherwise, about what’s causing a problem, and what might exacerbate it.
But you don’t have to be a doctor or an athlete to understand that any injury can get worse, or at least create a new injury in another place. If you’ve ever tweaked your neck or rolled an ankle, you know it changes the way you move and puts unfamiliar stress on other parts of the body. You know that rest is better for it than labor, especially if that labor involves, say, trying to keep Giannis Antetokounmpo away from the rim. Whether Blake Griffin destroyed his knee by playing on it last spring, only made it a little bit worse, or didn’t negatively affect it at all, there was a safer option and a less-safe one. He chose the latter, and it looks like his leg is now seriously jacked up.
A couple days ago, Nate McMillan told reporters that Domantas Sabonis, who has been struggling with a sore knee and sat out a recent game against the Bulls, will continue to play without any minutes restriction because, you guessed it: the injury can’t get worse. We’ll see how that goes for Young Domas, whose only slightly more gargantuan dad had a foot like a gnarled tree root by the time he was 30. He could heal up just fine and continue what’s been an immensely satisfying breakout season. He could also—obviously, obviously—turn the wrong way on a weak knee and suffer a setback. To pretend that’s not a possibility is dangerous folly. Athletes should do what they want with their bodies, and that includes wrecking them, but they should understand the risks too. At least then they can make a calculated decision, before being as heedless and wild as they need to be in their wearying work.
Obviously, the author of the article is simply a fan just like the rest of us. He isn't a doctor (nor does he claim to be one) or even a journalist. It's simply a fan writing an article to present his opinion so don't take it as more than it is. Still, I do believe that what he's saying expresses why I'm concerned about letting a player who isn't 100% healthy play.Originally posted by IrishPacer
Empty vessels make the most noise.Comment
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I can't believe the medical staff on this team. Seriously "it can't get any worse" shouldn't be an allowed medical opinion.You can't get champagne from a garden hose.Comment
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Well, someone goes to a cosmetic surgeon. He says - You're ugly and yes - we can fix it, but until then - it can't get any worse.Originally posted by graphic-er View Post
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How do you aggravate a bruise? I mean, a re-injury is a new injury not an extension of the old one.Originally posted by graphic-er View PostBillS
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...Comment
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Why are there so many comparisons between Sabonis’ bone injury and everyone else’s tissue injuries?
I’m not worried about Sabonis because his injury is not like VO’s, or Blake’s, or Granger’s, et al. There’s nothing to tear or rupture.Comment
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Okay I will take the bait. There are very few places on the knee that do not have a muscle or a supportive structure around it. A bruise is also sort of misleading. If he has a bruise over say the vmo then this could impact his knee stability. He may not be at a greater risk of injuring the vmo further or the site of the bruise but it will reduce the overall knee stability if he has a muscular contusion there.Originally posted by BillS View Post
The fact that this made the news tells me it is not a simple subcutaneous contusion or what we all think of as a simple bruise.
Lastly if he alters his gait or even his playing style then he may alter his biomechanics. As much as I personally do not care if a player wants to push himself it is very hard for me to believe that a player is at no greater risk of further injury if he is showing visible signs that he is in discomfort. Alter a players biomechanics and you put him at a greater risk.Last edited by Gamble1; 01-17-2020, 03:59 PM.Comment
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Yep as somebody that has had multiple injuries (soccer, softball, basketball, UNO) I can talk about how an small injury in one part of your body can become something else in another part of your body.Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post
Having a knee injury might make Sabo overcompensate and over use his good knee, I've done this myself and now I need to get surgery in the good knee
@WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!
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The article also saidOriginally posted by Gamble1 View Post
which made the news but wasn't something complex because of it.In late 2017, James Harden juddered and feinted away on a sore knee that couldn’t get worse and it seems like it didn’t.
It made the news because Domas sat with it sore and came back with it sore, and the answer to the soreness was that it would still be there but not get worse.
Bottom line is that it really doesn't matter what the trainers or doctors say at a certain point. It is completely up to the player to describe how he feels and decide what to do. And the word that the injury itself won't get worse doesn't minimize secondary effects nor does the wording imply the athlete is unaware of those possibilities.BillS
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...Comment
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This. You should advise the trainers. It's a well known fact among experts on the internet that if you have any kind of injury to one leg you might just overcompensate and tear something on the other leg.Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post
Yep as somebody that has had multiple injuries (soccer, softball, basketball, UNO) I can talk about how an small injury in one part of your body can become something else in another part of your body.
Having a knee injury might make Sabo overcompensate and over use his good knee, I've done this myself and now I need to get surgery in the good knee
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One time this Chinese doctor poked me on one side of my body and I felt things on the other side. Crazy.Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post"Look, it's up to me to put a team around ... Lance right now." —Kevin Pritchard press conference
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This is true but that doesn't make any of us feel any less concerned about it.Originally posted by BillS View PostOriginally posted by IrishPacer
Empty vessels make the most noise.Comment
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By the way I feel the same way about a lot of players in the NBA, Dragic right now is playing with a big a$$ bracket on his knee and it hurts every time I watch him play, team doctors are telling him that he can’t get injure worse, I wouldn’t let him play.
Felt the same way about Blake last year and Detroit letting him play with a messed up knee when it was obvious he was injured bad, same with KD and the achilles.
@WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!Comment
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UNOOriginally posted by vnzla81 View Post
Yep as somebody that has had multiple injuries (soccer, softball, basketball, UNO) I can talk about how an small injury in one part of your body can become something else in another part of your body.
Having a knee injury might make Sabo overcompensate and over use his good knee, I've done this myself and now I need to get surgery in the good knee
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Arguments like this are moot when your star player is out for a year (and still not back) after badly injuring his knee after being told it was OK to play thru the pain.Originally posted by BillS View PostNuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.
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"A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."
-John WoodenComment
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