12-15-2020, 01:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 12-15-2020, 01:14 PM by StepBackJay.)
(12-15-2020, 12:58 PM)HanspardsShowerVoice Wrote: It's definitely a severe injury, but they've improved the surgical techniques and rehab quite a bit on Achilles that makes it not as severe as it used to be. They used to fillet your calf like a fish to sew the tendon back together. This caused a lot of scar tissue and you lost of flexibility and explosion in your lower leg just from that alone. Now in a lot of cases they can use small minimally invasive incisions. That's how guys can come back in ~8 months now. But honestly, we haven't had very many elite caliber players suffer Achilles in their primes (and I'm not including Powell in that category). The biggest success story is Dominique who had his when he was 21 and bounced back. Isiah, Ewing and Kobe were pretty much already washed up when they had theirs. Boogie was 27, but he just has had one catastrophic injury after another and it's hard to just isolate what impact the Achilles itself had. I mean, it seems like Wes is the poster child of what a catastrophic injury this is, but imho Wes was always just a high level role player and has stayed a role player for contending teams for another 5 years to this day. Same for Rudy Gay, honestly.
Right so I think we are seeing now what modern rehab techniques look like with a sample of athletes that are hyper-athletic. Wall, KD & Powell were all very high on the athletic scale, even at the NBA level. While the injury is still catastrophic in the sense that it takes away 1-2 years of your career, it looks like it's not necessarily one that will dramatically reduce one's athletic ability in certain cases.
We have been influences by Matthews, who was not a premier athlete and thus never really recovered. He is a productive NBA player but his defense is terrible and overrated. He has no burst or lift since his injury. JJB's age when he had the injury basically ended his career which might have been extended a year or two longer absent the injury.
Boogie obviously was athletic but also a huge body and looked really slow when he came back (albeit effective on offense). I haven't seen him yet this year, I am curious to see how he looks now. Similar to Wall he had an additional injury that took him out when he came back. Unlike Wall he carries a lot of weight which is a problem.
All that to say it's much more likely that Powell follows the path or a KD or Wall than Wes Matthews or JJB. I think 2021 he will look a lot more like Powell. In the mean time the biggest thing to watch for is re-injury.
On defense I think his lateral movement is fine for him, I just don't think he's a good defender pre or post injury. He does move his feet but lets guys turn the corner around him. He has never been a shot blocker altho I was happy to see him swat a shot last night. Powell is what he is, in my opinion he'd be better long-term off the bench but we might have to live with Powell as a starter for years to come.
When ppl post stats that say Powell is somehow a good defender or good team defender it makes me pull my hair out. Watching him now for years he is just not a good defender. Again he can move his feet and sort of close out on guys. You might be able to call Powell an average defender in the right situation. I just don't understand how anyone can watch him play and think he's a good defender.