Where are You?
2013-01-08
Ah-dorable, Andy. We miss you.
Where is Anderson Varejao? That’s what everyone wants to know. Wednesday night, Varejao will miss his 11th game in a row with a knee contusion. The contusion, or bruise, was suffered on December 18th against the Toronto Raptors. After expressing pain and coming out for a few minutes, the Brazilian big man returned to the game and finished it out, with 22 points and 10 rebounds. The injury seemed minor, moderate at most. Varejao was slated to miss a couple of games after the injury, and then return to action. Obviously, that has not been the case. Is there any possible explanation for his prolonged absence? Let’s cover the possibilities.
1. The knee injury is significantly worse than we realized.
This seems unlikely. First of all, the Cavs, thank God, are not a team with a history of mistreating injury situations. We all know the issues the Knicks have had with covering up STAT’s various knee injuries, but this doesn’t seem to be a similar type of thing. If the injury were serious at all, it’s hard to imagine that Andy would have returned to the Raptors game. Also, what would the Cavs have to gain from covering up an injury? Any trade involving Varejao would require his passing a physical and medical exam, so it’s not like a cover-up would land us Kevin Love, or anything. It’s possible that the injury is significant, but undefined yet. But given the general acuity of NBA trainers, and the fact that it doesn’t take three weeks to get MRI results back, this can’t really be the case. Even if ESPN thinks so. The missed time must be stemming from something other than the injury itself.
2. There are serious, ongoing trade talks underway, and his absence is a trade condition.
This may be the only explanation that makes any sense at all. A request for a trade target to be held out of games until the completion of a trade is fairly common, and is especially understandable for a player with Varejao’s injury history. It also fits with the other news coming out of Cleveland recently. Samardo Samuels was cut. Roster spots, anyone? Luke Walton didn’t attend Monday night’s game for “personal reasons.” Could he have been making travel arrangements to Minnesota? The only hole in this theory is that eleven games seems like an unusual amount of time for a “Don’t play Wild Thing, we don’t want him getting hurt” stipulation. For the Cavs to listen to such a request, they must have been near agreement with another team. But why would a trade that close to happening take three more weeks to complete? There must have been a serious last-second snag in negotiations to cause such a delay. All in all, this is really the only possible reason for the missed time.
We may have seen the last of Anderson Varejao in a Cavs uniform. I’ve advocated for an Andy trade all year, as I still do. Regardless, it’s tragic to think that the last we ever saw of Wild Thing was a deflating loss to a hot Alan Anderson and the Toronto Raptors.
P.S.
Byron Scott’s quotes on the situation are infuriating:
“I hope I’m not talking like its long-term or for the season. I’m still optimistic he’ll be able to play this year until the doctors tell me something different.”
“I’m not a doctor and I’m not going to speculate on what it is.”
It’s pretty clear to me that for the past several years, the Cavs have used injury opportunities to sit their best players for extended periods of time. It is obvious that if you’re not going to make the playoffs, it’s better to get good draft picks. Two years ago, they sat Varejao for 2 months for a sprained ankle or something. I won’t be at all surprised when they sit Varejao until the last 2 or 3 weeks of the season or something.
Lean on the mighty Luke Walton, that’s what.
/dies
Idk NDk He should get a lawyer anyways. It can’t hurt . But I guess it doesn’t matter how P.O.’d I am. It doesn’t change anything. Cavs are f’d yet another year. When you go to the Q, people just love Andy and his team mates look up to him as well. He is as popular if not more than Irving sometime (should I dare say) . They need him so badly and it’s just a damn shame not to have his leadership on the floor. He’s most consistent when he’s on the floor. Even more consistent than Bryon Scott’s… Read more »
Perhaps they trusted the diagnosis of rehabilitation. Perhaps they got a second opinion, and that opinion agreed with rehab instead of surgery. I don’t know with certainty. It just sounded like you thought the Cavs were negligent in their treatment of Andy, whereas I feel like they got unlucky.
Well NDK this post didn’t have the details. Another completely post did which i didn’t see. But bottom line, they still waited too late to get to the bottom of this. Why wasn’t the surgeon from Colorado asked weeks ago. I work in the mediacl field and you can file malpracice in the instance. Malpractice in the regards of waiting too late for the proper treatment necessary. With such an important player as Varejao; it never occured to them to perhaps get another opinion in this process earlier. Are the Cavs broke?
If you further investigate the story, you’ll realize they did a MRI when the initial injury happened, which identified the initial split. The diagnosis called for rehab instead of surgery. Symptoms persisted, they did a follow-up MRI, and discovered the condition had worsened (which, you know, happens). This isn’t malpractice. It’s crappy luck.
INexcusable ! They couldn’t do a MRI sooner weeks and weeks ago? Cavs organization are complete idiots! This is malpractice at best. Their failure to act not only hurt the Cavs but also Varejoa personally. Geez Even Boobie gts MRI’s practically weekly.
Well that sucks. I guess we should’ve traded him earlier in the year.
So if you want to find something to bash Chris Grant about, well there you go. He should’ve traded Andy before he got injured.
And yes, we need to trade this guy before he suffers a career ending type of injury.
Wow, that’s surreal…
3 full weeks to finally decide he needed surgery?
It won’t look good on Cavs medical staff resumé…
OK, no trading Andy this year. On the plus side, it’s not season ending. He’ll have a chance to get back into playing shape and play before the off-season.
So, is it now a priority for the Cavs to trade him?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/wizards/cavaliers-c-anderson-varejao-to-miss-11th-straight-game-with-bruised-knee-return-unknown/2013/01/08/e8cb6a7c-59f9-11e2-b8b2-0d18a64c8dfa_story.html
http://www.ohio.com/blogs/cleveland-cavaliers/cleveland-cavaliers-1.275356/anderson-varejao-will-miss-6-8-weeks-with-quadricep-tear-1.363687
Yep, Quad Tear. Thats unfortunate. It was a hell of a season so far too. Come back stronger Andy!
Nathan, I don’t think it was that foolish of the Sixers. I can’t remember, did they give up anything other than Iggy? His name was involved in rumors for a couple of years so it didn’t seem like they had him in their long term plans anymore and they were never able to get anything back for him anyway. And even if it only had like a 20% chance of working out, if it had it could have been a Yahtzee for them. As an aside, I can’t stand Bynum so I was really happy the Cavs didn’t wind up… Read more »
Quad tear confirmed. Andy needs surgery, done 6-8 weeks.
As for Bynum, he had a dislocated knee cap (and subsequent surgery) in 2008, a torn MCL in 2009, a torn meniscus in 2010, and hyperextension in 2011. The Sixers GM said “At the time of the trade, we had four doctors look at his MRI; we knew it was a calculated risk. We also knew we were getting the second-best center in the league, a franchise-type player. We took that risk.” That is, they knew his cartilage was pretty worn down at the time of the trade. When you’re 285lbs like Bynum, that’s bad news, and that’s a risk… Read more »
Just found this article after I commented: http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2013/01/cleveland_cavaliers_center_and.html
Doesn’t really shed much light, but appears to suggest it’s injury, not trade, related. AV’s value must be sinking right now. Probably better off not trading him then.
Is this being talked about anywhere but here? Seems weird that it’s not a story at all. I guess no one cares about the Cavs right now. If he were on the Lakers this would be a big story.
No one was talking about Omri Casspi until there was that Yahoo story about wanting a trade. Everything’s really quiet
The sixers/wolves weren’t oblivious to the knee conditions of those players, they just thought the risk was worth taking (fail). If anything, MRIs are so detailed as to give false evidence of minor injuries when all is well.
Dani, No one had any clue how bad Bynum’s knees were until the season already started and that was even through a trade process. Its not like they try and make knee injury information as public as possible, and with doctor patient privileged and the teams complete incentive to not leak the information, the only people that probably know are Andy, his doctors, Scott and grant. It makes no sense that they were close enough to a done deal for 3 weeks. It makes no sense that if they aren’t close to a deal that they would hold Andy out,… Read more »
To follow up, I’m not sure that a physical would show a degenerative condition. A physical would simply show that the player is healthy enough to play at that time. If the player has a degenerative problem, it gets worse the more he plays. Take Brandon Roy as an example. He was able to pass a physical with the Timberwolves after taking a year off. He played five games, and now his knees are bad again. If doctors feel that’s the case (and I have no idea if they do), then resting Andy and keeping quiet about the injury makes… Read more »
Didn’t Andrew Bynum have to pass a physical before being traded to the Sixers? Whatever tests they gave him didn’t reveal his knee problems.
As has been said before, any trade partner will make Andy pass a physical…and with modern technology there’s no way to hide even a moderate knee injury. If Andy has a serious knee injury, the Cavs have no reason to keep that a secret.
I think the Bioshock series is a good holdover. Bioshock Infinity is due out before summer. Heard Dishonored is solid. Anyways…
As for Andy, I’m not excited about the trades thrown around here so let’s hope it is just caution for a minor injury. The Cavs are certainly in rebuild mode. Giving up a 2013/14 #1 for players with 2 or less years on an existing contract is a bad idea.
I agree with Matthew, the injury is probably more serious than they have let on. The longer he’s out, the more potential trade partners get nervous.
@ Tom
BTW, I really liked your Half Life 3 comment from yesterday. I’ve been waiting for that as well. If you want a good substitute in the meantime, try the Assassin’s Creed series. It’s better than Half Life IMO.
@Scuzz – I’ve never played the AC games. I don’t get to play as many games as I used to, but I did play through the Mass Effect series and (mostly) enjoyed them. Actually I just downloaded Perfect Dark for xbox live arcade and might spend some time taking out datadyne thugs. As far as the tanking argument – it only makes sense to be extra careful bringing Andy back if they do not consider him a part of the future. Otherwise, the core guys need playing time together to grow. So I would say possible options are 1.) He’s… Read more »
If it was a serious injury, don’t you think we would have heard something by now? As for the tanking, I think it’s way too early in the season to assume tanking! The Cavs were definitely losing enough games with Andy, so it’s not like we couldn’t possibly play him and lose a game.
Please excuse my potnial typo. *potential*
Obviously, the injury is more serious than a bruise. The big guy has missed over ten games. It is ridiculous to hear Coach Scott say, “I’m not a doctor, I’m not going to speculate or try to guess what it is.” He knows what it is. Why would he not communicate with the doctor’s about his condition? And/or, wouldn’t Andy communicate his condition with Coach Scott? What good does it do to withold medical information about a player who continues to miss game after game? In terms of trade potntial, are NBA GM’s really dumb enough to assume, “Ah, well… Read more »
Serious trade talks that no one has really managed to hear about that have now been going on for THREE weeks? That seems unlikely to me. Byron Scotts quotes are infuriating, but I’m not sure if its the reasons you think they are. They are infuriating because they seem to be coming from a guy who tacitly admitting the injury is worse than let on. He would know, right?
It’s either a serious injury or exploitation of a minor injury to purposefully tank. I’m leaning towards option 1 at this point.
Andrew Bynums crappy started with thinking it was a knee bruise too right?
Holding a player back a little hit in a tanking season so as not to risk him makes sense…but three weeks for a knee bruise? Where’s the precedent for that?
I think its very possible the team realized they weren’t going to compete for anything. Maybe around the time everyone got healthy and they continued to lose games. Then a mildly hampered player isn’t worth rushing back. Who knows.
#4: Andy’s stats can only regress to the mean if he returns. Sure, I’d love to be an optimist and say he’ll hit the ground running with 20 & 15 games every other night, but realistically speaking it’s doubtful that he could maintain, let alone improve upon, his to date averages if he played more games. Why not just sit him out, and let his trade stock stay as high as it is now?
#4 and a half: *rumblerumblerumble* is that a tank I hear?
I present to you a 3rd scenario: 3. There is no beneficial reason for the Cavs to declare just how serious the knee injury is If they do, they risk letting teams that could potentially be interested in sending offers for a perceived healthy Varejao up until the trade deadline run away. Why not use the next month to at least field offers for next year, getting a gauge on just how far teams are willing to go and acting as if we want more… since we wouldn’t be able to medically clear Andy for a trade anyway, therefore our… Read more »
Time to interview de CAVS medical departament?