Grizzlies’ Staff Must Do Better With Their Wounded Roster

I’m unsure if you’ve had the flu recently, but I have…

When I tell you that this most recent bout of it… Well, it felt like every bone in my body was being rung out like a wet washcloth. Every. Single One.

Walking up a half flight of stairs felt as if it was the single most exhausting thing you could ask someone to do. I’m talking gassed before making it up two steps. Unable to breathe.

Toss in a fever for good measure. I’m talking over 101 for five out of six days. Real sweaty, too, you know? The on-again-off-again sweats—like an ex-fling who keeps you on the hook—every few hours or so.

Or if that’s unfamiliar to you… Have you spent time in the ER and or hospital recently? Show of hands? Well, BINGO for me there, too.

The flu mentioned above? That brought on acute sinusitis, which led to hospitalization. The best way I can think of to describe that? Imagine throbbing pain… As if someone is taking a power drill and pressing it deeper and deeper behind the eye.

Do you feel a slight tinge of the heebie-jeebies? How about so overwhelmed you’re about to vomit? That has to be what the Memphis Grizzlies training staff is feeling after the season they’ve had, huh?

The Steven Adams Injury

This feels as if it was the starting point of the descent. It was an injury sustained in a January game against Phoenix that would prove to be the jumping-off point… The Steven Adams injury.

It was January 22nd. Steve-O hurts his knee. You–I imagine—like myself, were more than a bit distraught at this news… Knowing how integral of a piece he is to the well-oiled machine that is the Memphis Grizzlies, how could you not? The team was prompt in their response to the injury with this news two days following the initial injury.

Here’s the thing, though. After that? It was, give or take, what? Three months? Three months until we got the next bit of “official” news on the injury? Look at the WOJ alert date…

It appears I rounded up for the sake of emphasis. Bad Luke. Two and a half months. Two and half months, and we get a half-ass answer like that.

Which, I apologize to all donkeys and burros alike for that ass comment. They are fine animals and often get a bad rap.

But I digress… Here’s the next time we would get news about the Big Kiwi…

If you look at that date and think to yourselves: “Wait, isn’t that date after the playoffs and after the offseason… And we’re only NOW getting word of this crap?! Great… Cool…”

*bangs head against wall sobbing*

I’m certain someone has to know exactly what I mean.

All I’m saying is I wish—and it’s not as if it’s a big ask—this would have been more of a slow rollout as opposed to… whatever it was they decided to do because this sucked.

The Luke Kennard and Xavier Tillman Injuries

Chapter two of our saga is more egregious. If, for the lone fact that I’ve searched. And searched. And searched. And then while I was in the hospital dealing with the sinusitis I mentioned above? You guessed it, I did some more searching…

I still cannot, for the life of me, find the play that Luke Kennard injured his knee. I can’t do it. I’ve looked. I have. Promise. I can’t find it.

The closest—and I’m talking Sweeney Todd levels of shave close–I’ve gotten is the play below…

That’s it. That was the last time we saw Nardo play basketball this season. I’m assuming it’s also the play during which he sustained a bone bruise in his knee. I know that I shouldn’t assume… On account of making an ass out of you and me.

It wasn’t Kennard alone this happened to either. Xavier Tillman Sr.’s injury was also juggled in a similar fashion. Here’s the play X injured his knee as well… I think…

It does look like X may have landed on that knee a bit funky on the way down. I’ll give him that. But that was it. That’s 2-for-2 on plays where I’m struggling to see the culprit and understand the handling of the outcome. Here are the dates of these games.

November 14th was Kennard’s last appearance. November 3rd was Tillman’s run-in with the injury bug. What I mean by that is—from what I’ve been able to tell—this was the game that it looks like X reaggravated his knee. When did we get word from the team?

Check the date like it’s Hidden Valley Ranch in the back of the fridge. That’s what? A week or two for X—when do we get official word on both injuries? After what Coach called a “precautionary absence” in Nardo’s case… And poor X looks like a different player—and not in a good way—since returning from his injury…

The way the team is juggling both cases… Well, both haven’t felt right in this humble writer’s opinion. It’s by no means an indictment on the training staff. Although, I would’ve done it differently.

The Jake LaRavia Injury

Now for the cherry on top… If the cherry wasn’t appetizing and not on top of the desert but buried at the bottom… Jake LaRavia’s “injury.” I put that in quotations not to challenge the validity of the injury itself but more so to challenge my own understanding of when the injury occurred.

I can’t strike out, going three for three in failing to find “the play.” My own personal thoughts? It’s that the following update came from the team with little to no fanfare. After TJ all but phasing Jake out of the lineup.

Look, it’s not fair to LaRavia—nor to the Grizzlies—that their season has forced him to see the minutes he has. I get it. But look at their streak of (weird) injury communications. Steven Adams. Luke Kennard. Xavier Tillman Sr. Jake LaRavia.

The next weirdest thing would be for us to find out that Marcus Smart actually hadn’t inured his ankle… Or that Brandon Clarke actually had been playing this entire time, and we’d missed it. Either way, the manner in which the staff has been treating this string of injuries? It’s treading dangerously near gaslighting.

And basketball—or, for that matter, life—has no place for that nonsense.