Wow.
Dave will be here soon to talk us down off the ledge.
Hopefully.
-- Ben (benjamin.golliver@gmail.com)
Adding on from Dave:
I don't know about talking people down off the ledge. Personally I'm getting a little tired of late summer knee surgeries to our star players. Can't everyone just get their knees scoped in April when the season ends and be done with it? Preventative medicine, you know.
Nevertheless, let's not panic yet. There's no set timetable for Roy's return, which could be good or bad. Plus Roy being out means more chance to see Bayless, Fernandez, and Martell. However if he's not back to start the season we can plan to be REALLY hurting with that November schedule.
Easy surgery...quick recovery. That's the mantra right now.
--Dave (blazersub@yahoo.com)
P.S. In case you need it, here's the complete text of the announcement:
The Portland Trail Blazers announced today that guard Brandon Roy will undergo arthroscopic knee surgery on Thursday to repair a tear in the meniscus of his left knee. A Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) taken Tuesday revealed the tear in the meniscus.
Trail Blazers team physician Dr. Don Roberts will perform the surgery at Southwest Washington Regional Surgery Center in Vancouver, Wash.
A timetable for Roy’s return will be set following the arthroscopic surgery.
P.P.S. The following conversation was taped at Blazers HQ today. Names have been disguised to protect confidentiality.
Mystery Player: Man, that Blazersedge blog is so cool. I want to start one of those.
Blazer Media Rep: Sorry [Mystery Player], blogging is intricate work. Not just anybody can do one. There are qualifications, exams, licensing...
Mystery Player: Wait, doesn't Oden have one on the official Blazers site? He hasn't even played a single game and he gets to do it!
Blazer Media Rep: That's different. That's a recovery blog.
Mystery Player: Recovery blog?
Blazer Media Rep: Yeah. He documents his recovery from knee surgery.
Mystery Player: So you're saying the only way I can get a blog of my own is to recover from knee surgery.
Blazer Media Rep: Pretty much.
Mystery Player: Hand me that mallet over there...
(sigh) Silly Mystery Player. If you had just asked we would have let you do a guest spot or two. I mean, on a slow day.
--Dave
P.P.P.S. Here's Casey Holdahl doing an interview with Nate McMillan just today. No mention of any of this, so one may assume the issue is relatively recent and known to only a select few until this time. This conclusion would also be supported by the late-evening announcement.
UPDATE 10:34 p.m.:
Obviously all of us are going to have to wait and find out together what the results of the surgery will be. Nobody in the organization knows, nor will they know until the procedure is done. But because everybody feels like jumping off a bridge over this we went ahead and talked to some official sources. One of them agreed to share this anonymously:
There are two types of surgery like this. There’s a minor, and a more serious repair. Gilbert Arenas had a pretty significant tear, and was out three months. But, there are cases where it’s much more minor.
’s Craig Smith just had this same procedure on August 2nd, and they put his timetable at 6 weeks We’re still about 80 days out from opening night, so we’ve got some time. That’s the good news. The team should release a timeline after the surgery in the morning. They probably just need to get in there and see how bad it is. Out of habit, we’re all thinking the worst. But, hopefully it won’t be that bad. Minnesota
Maybe that will ease people's minds a little and give us a clearer idea when we might hear more. Keep checking this post, as we're talking to more people as we speak.
----
UPDATE 10:41 p.m.: Jason Quick helps talk us down too. -- Ben
----
--Dave