Re: OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!

[opi@unesco.org]

Hi John, now here's a true Celts fan! :-) In the best case scenario Fort will
only miss 14 games, of which 9 are at home and at least 6 are winnable games
against non-playoff teams from last season. Hopefully, he will be back well
before our first game against the LA Fakers on the 20th of December (9 weeks
from now). On paper December is arguably the most difficult month, with
January looking like a piece of cake and March and April looking relatively
easy as well.

Hopefully, Fortson will still be in game shape immediately on his return to
the lineup. I assume he can ride a stationary bike in a cast, or some other
high tech wonder in the Healthpoint gym. He was actually dressed and ready to
play last night, so hopefully it can't hurt that bad an injury (or he has a
high threshold for pain). The good thing in theory about injuries to guys with
strong "below the rim" fundamentals is that it doesn't necessary hurt a
player's performance irreversibly (especially psychologically) if they are
forced by injury to reduce the amount of above-the-rim flash in their game
(since jumping high and landing are killers). In fact, many of the dominant
rebounding power forwards relied on next to no hops at all, whether you are
talking about Silas or Oakley or the Mailman. Guys like Dennis Johnson, Kevin
McHale and Larry Bird rarely bothered to leave their feet by the middle of
their careers, since they had enough intelligence in the fundamentals to not
need to. The same is absolutely true of Bill Walton. I'm sure you've all seen
the great still photo of him at UCLA, leaping to block a shot with his hand
extended well above the top of the backboard (looking like a hoops Jerry
Garcia with his sweat band and long dirty hair).

Joe


****
John OByrne 604 - 4526 wrote:

> BOSTON POWER FORWARD COULD MISS THREE MONTHS
>
> (AP) - Boston Celtics forward Danny Fortson has a stress fracture
> in his right foot and will miss 8-to-12 weeks. The Celtics
> announced Fortson's injury in Charlotte during the first half of
> their exhibition loss against the Hornets on Tuesday night. The
> team said Fortson, hobbling on crutches before the game, would
> return to Boston on Wednesday for further tests. "It was a big
> blow to us, but at least it's not his anterior cruciate ligament
> and it's early in the season," Celtics coach Rick Pitino said.
> "Danny's a tough guy. We cannot hang our heads about it."
> Fortson, a third-year pro, was acquired in an offseason trade
> with Denver that sent former first-round draft choice Ron Mercer
> from Boston to the Nuggets.
>
> why us lord?????? what did we do to deserve this????? was it the Potapenko
> cursing incident?, maybe Battie trying to mow down a cop?, was it Toin's
> involvement in that incident in his house????