The CURSE is REAL - Griffin out 3-4 Weeks

The evidence definitely supports my position, but it might not support a more general idea that extra-NBA play should be avoided.

Kaman. Kaman was injury prone before he played. As such, he should probably focus on playing for the people who pay him, as he did before the 07-08 2.0 season, with great results. Those results ended when he hit a bad patch in 08—bad back, flu, sprained ankle, if I recall, but I might be getting it confused with another bad patch. At any rate, I’m pretty sure I remember that the ankle is what kept us from ever seeing Kaman 2.0 and FElton. And the theory is that the ankle was perhaps not completely healed when he went to Germany, and he might have had a calf or hamstring problem there. “Before and stayed” doesn’t really apply when you compare 07-08 and 08-09. If he is injury prone, he has every reason to replicate his summer 07 program, which was so effective.

Jaric. Jaric did not stink from the beginning. In his rookie season, after being stashed in Europe for a year or two, he played behind Andre Miller, and Miller was the guy who stunk and ruined the esprit de corps of the young Clippers. And Jaric was better than Miller. After Miller left, Jaric was slated to be the starting PG, but I think he played in Europe both summers, and both years he had injuries—I don’t remember the exact sequence. He was hobbled by plantar fascitis after one full slate of summer games, I remember. And Jaric didn’t “stink” categorically. He was good enough that he was traded for Cassell and a 1st round pick, and Minnesota gave him a contract that is a lot bigger than the one LOdom is trying to get. He played well as a glue guy, active defender, and wing/PG coming off the bench. But Livingston was on the roster and appeared to be the future starter, and Jaric thought he could be a starting PG in the league. The Clippers would have given him an MLE deal to come off the bench, but there was interest from George Karl in Denver, as well as Minnesota. It turns out he wasn’t as good as he and others thought he might be. But he got $42 million, he was already driving Lambourghinis, and he married a ridiculously hot Brazilian supermodel. I wish I stunk like Jaric does.

FElton. After being challenged by MDSr in 05 to make a strong summer commitment to his fitness, FElton had an MVP-level season in 05-06 and led the Clips to the second round of the playoffs and got them 5 seconds away from the conference finals. He was dominant, and an absolute beast in the playoffs. In summer 06 he played on Team USA and lost to Sofo. When he got back from that humiliation, the Clips headed off to Moscow. When the NBA season began, it was clear that November 06 FElton was not quite the same player as 05-06 FElton had been, and the team was very slow coming out of the gate. He recovered and played well, but injuries to Cassell and the QRoss-Maggette controversy had the Clips flailing. Soon after Maggette went into the starting lineup, probably too late to salvage the season, Livingston suffered a horrible injury. The Clips still almost got the 8th playoff seed. Yes, FElton declined to play on Team USA—because he wanted to duplicate his summer 05 regime. He had injured his achilles during a late-season game, and it never properly healed. He popped it and missed 70+ games, and then had another season-ending injury early last year.

On the whole, your point is correct. We’ve heard a lot about how LeBron learned from seeing Kobe’s preparation and approach. Wade fueled his comeback from injury by playing for Team USA. I don’t know that I’ve heard of any Team USA players suffering ill effects.

Ginobili might have benefitted from some time off. Yao can’t take much wear and tear, but there was no way he wasn’t going to play in Beijing. Not sure about any other examples of elite or high-level NBA players who suffered ill-effects.

I also like to think, in this context, about Eric Gordon and his injuries last year. Livingston turns out to have been a special case, and he was a relatively fragile player who then had a horrible injury. It was scary—with all of the problems Livingston had before his knee blew up, he made all of us gunshy. Then Gordon got tweaked in summer league last year, and it was a bummer, and we didn’t really get a good look at him. And then, just for fun, he tweaked the same ankle on the first day of training camp. That all seemed very curselike, especially when Camby was already hobbled for training camp, and then Baron Davis and Tim Thomas got hurt, and Ricky Davis and Kaman were funky. But then Gordon came back quickly and he was fine and strong through the whole season, with just one minor shoulder bruise. Gordon, unlike Livingston, is solid and tough, and I expect Griffin to be the same type of player.

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LOL!!!