Russell Westbrook is just 25 years old and diligent about recovery from the meniscus injury he suffered last playoffs. We’ve seen him throw his crutches into the pool, but we’ve now also seen him need a second surgery to clean everything up.
Still, he has said when he comes back he will be the same aggressive, explosive guy he’s always been.
But what if he’s not?
Here in Los Angeles (I nearby in the LBC) there is an interesting weekend morning show on ESPN Radio with former NBA assistant coach Dave Miller and orthopedic surgeon Robert Klapper (Dr. Klapper to you) mostly giving advice to weekend warriors who pull up lame. But they also discuss major sports injuries.
Dr. Klapper said some interesting things about Westbrook, as highlighted by Royce Young at Daily Thunder.
“So this is what’s going on. I want you to think of the meniscus as a slice of apple pie,” Klapper said. “If you tear the meniscus where the tip of the slice is, we clean it up and you’re playing within a few weeks. But, in the case of Russell Westbrook, he tore his meniscus where the crust of the slice of pie is. That’s in an area where we try to repair it when it tears there because there’s good circulation. We call it the red-red zone. Those are the cases, where when you operate, you got to keep the person on crutches, protect their weight-bearing and they’re not coming back right away. So that tells us that the first time they put stitches in, it obviously didn’t work and they’re trying to do it yet again….
“Well, just like real estate, what do they say?” he continued. “Location, location, location. When we are talking about the lateral meniscus, the meniscus on the outside of your knee, versus the medial meniscus, the difference between the two is the lateral meniscus gets all the rotational pivoting when you make maneuvers. And that is Russell Westbrook’s game. It’s not just a pounding structure, it’s actually a rotatory stabilizer. So his game is absolutely going to be impacted because it’s the lateral meniscus and not the medial meniscus.”
Thunder fans should take a deep breath… but yes, I’d be worried a little.
Klapper was not involved in the Westbrook surgeries nor has he consulted on this case, so take it with salt if you wish. But the question he raises is one that should worry Thunder fans:
What if Westbrook just is not the same?
Here’s the dirty little secret about the Thunder — their sets are simplistic. They can get away with that, especially in the regular season, because they have the best pure scorer on the planet in Kevin Durant and the explosive Westbrook. If you blow up their sets, one of those two go isolation and score at a rate most teams can’t match. (It’s more complex than that; this is the one paragraph synopsis.)
But what happens if Westbrook loses just half a step? Especially since there is no James Harden or even Kevin Martin to soak up those possessions.
The Thunder have a lot of questions to answer. So does Westbrook when he returns.