The fate of a promising NBA rookie: Will he return from injury?
When Adam Silver announced that Oklahoma selected Gonzaga University center Chet Holmgren with the No. 2 pick of the 2022 draft, it was an excellent start for the rookie.
The future of the young player in the NBA, upon whom Thunder fans began to pray long before the draft ceremony, seemed cloudless. So seeing Chet demolish skepticism in the Summer League and exhibition tournaments were all the more satisfying. And then there was Seattle, the CrawsOver Pro-Am game, trying to block LeBron James’ pass, Lisfranc’s joint injury, and being sidelined for the next season. If you are interested in more than just basketball and other sports, then https://cricket360.bet/cricket-betting-sites/ will surprise you with its information.
What kind of injury?
The Lisfranc joint injury is named after a French surgeon who served as a field doctor in Napoleon’s army. During battles, riders were often knocked out of their saddles, and the wounded did not have time to remove their legs from their stirrups, injuring the tarsal-tarsal joints.
Since the central area of injury is the forefoot, where there are many small joints, ligaments, and cartilage, mainly those responsible for the motor skills of the toes, this is a very unpleasant injury in which surgery is inevitable. Recovery times may vary, but surgery is mandatory. The French horse doctor was the first to be able to operate on such injuries. How the healing took place explains that in addition to the Lisfranc joint, there is also the amputation of the Lisfranc and the knife named after him.
These days, understandably, the process is much more humane, even though not only the number and quality of methods of repairing the injury have grown over time but also how it can be earned.
Lisfranc joint injury has a wide variety, but two are the most common.
- The first is common in American soccer players; in situations where almost all of the body weight is transferred to the front of the foot, and the back of the ankle is lifted vertically up (as in sprinters in preparation for a start), the player is in a very vulnerable situation. Sometimes even minimal impact – let alone a fall into the feet of a 120-kg defender in full ammunition – is enough to injure the Lisfranc joint: the excessive load goes from top to bottom and practically drives the foot into the surface.
- The second type is more common in basketball and volleyball because the joint is most often injured when landing when the position of the foot changes depending on various factors: the height and trajectory of the jump, body weight, balance, and time in the air. When landing, the player often overloads the foot and then goes sharply to the side, putting the same Lisfranc joint at excessive risk.
Holmgren was injured. Similarly, the difference is that he was not in the air. With all his attention focused on defending against LeBron, Chet took two wide steps backward, after which his right foot went sideways. In other words, the damage can be described as follows: The foot in the upright position, when stepping backward, suddenly rests on the floor and bends to the side. The Lisfranc joint is located in the medial part of the foot, and when it is injured, a gap is created between it and the rest of the bone tissue, which disrupts the entire articular mechanism. To fix it, surgeons implant a bone sample or use plates made of unique biomaterials that fill the space and serve as a bone membrane.
Such semiconductors increase the likelihood of relapse but do not become a stigma for the athlete. It is where subjective factors, such as aggressive playing style, bone fatigue rate, etc., come into play. It may seem like Holmgren is doomed now, but when you look at the top rookies who had to miss their first season and players with identical injuries, it becomes apparent that you shouldn’t give up on the Thunder center right here and now.
Holmgren has every chance of ending up in the elite company.
You can wrap all you want around the idea that Holmgren is an injury guy, and missing a season only confirms concerns about his physiology. Still, in reality, that’s not entirely true.
Even though rumors about the subtle kid, versatile as a kitchen combine, have been around since his days playing for the school, nearly every mock draft listed Holmgren as second behind Paolo Banquero. The most significant cause for doubt was not so much physical data but inconsistencies, which everyone could interpret in their own way. Depending on the resolution of these paradoxes, Holmgren could be seen as either a more mobile version of Pau Gasol or the illegitimate son of Sean Bradley. And so it has always been, at all stages of his career. In high school, Holmgren played side-by-side with current Orlando guard Jalen Suggs, averaging 18.6 points and 11 rebounds, but he already broke the wrist of his right (shooting) hand.
After Suggs began slowly treading the path for his buddy and enrolled at Gonzaga University, Holmgren’s average stats soared to 21 points and 12.3 rebounds, and he led his team to its fourth state title as the sole leader. That win officially and permanently cemented national recognition for Chet. He collected a pile of individual awards, received some 30 offers from top universities, and an invitation to the U.S. Youth National Team.
After Holmgren decided to play for Gonzaga, which at the time no longer had Suggs, many expected the center to at least confirm his stats. And Chet got off to a steep start. In his debut game against Dixie State, he had 14 points, six assists, 13 rebounds, and seven blocked shots and became the first Zags rookie in 25 years to notch over 10 points, ten rebounds, five assists, and five blocked shots in a game.
Isn’t an injury before your NBA career terrible at all?
Since 2006, four top-3 draft picks have missed their first season due to injury:
- Greg Oden;
- Blake Griffin;
- Joel Embiid;
- Ben Simmons.
Of that quartet, only Portland center Greg Oden did not make it. Greg had his first surgery when he was in sixth grade. After the kid grew 15 centimeters in a year, he began to have pain at the base of his right hip. His rapid growth caused the head of the bone to pop out of the bottom of his hip joint. The surgeons had to insert two pins to fix it in its proper condition. This condition could not be called natural because since then, Oden’s right leg has been 8 millimeters shorter than the left leg. The recovery was long and painful; even after Greg stopped moving around on crutches, he was in pain, he felt discomfort, and his gait became heavy and awkward. So it’s pointless-sad to sort out which of the many injuries was fatal for the center, who at 19 looked to be in his weary 30s.
What’s next for Oklahoma?
Oklahoma has at least lost the attention of neutral fans and lost in TV ratings, but it’s not the end of the world. Especially since the team has something to do, and it’s not necessarily the infamous pursuit of Victor Wembanyama, which every third team in the NBA today holds in disgrace.
Oklahoma won’t be busting their balls to make the playoffs, but the French prodigy isn’t an end in itself, either. It’s more important for the Thunder to clinch the top three, and there Presti, who has an inexhaustible supply of draft picks, can decide how to use them. Trading for more experienced players to assemble a stronger team, selecting young wings like Cam Whitmore or Dariq Whitehead, and acquiring another handful of picks are the most basic options for the Thunder general manager. We’ll be watching, laughing, or crying as Chet Holmgren reinvents and glues himself together somewhere on the sidelines to live up to the fans’ faith and get a nickname no worse than Greek Freak upon his return.
