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Greg Oden

Pacers vs. Thunder Will Be Missed

by Jared Wade on October 11, 2011 at 12:54 pm · 0 comments

When the NBA canceled the first two weeks of the regular season, Pacers fans were likely most heart-broken about losing the home opener against the hated Boston Celtics. It would have been the first time for fans to see the team live following its valiant playoff series against Chicago. It would also be the first in-person look at George Hill in an Indian jersey.

For Zach Lowe of Sports Illustrated’s The Point Forward, however, the most unfortunate collateral damage from the floundering player/owner negotiations is the team’s lone schedule trip to Oklahoma City. He explains why he called that game one of the “10 Games we’ll miss the most this season.”

Nov. 4: Indiana Pacers @ Oklahoma City Thunder

The adorable Pacers, those under-.500 darlings of the first round, created a fair bit of buzz by pushing Chicago in a tight five-game series and then acquiring George Hill from the Spurs in the offseason. Then Roy Hibbert killed it on “Parks and Recreation”! Fans are excited in Indiana, and there is a lot of room here for internal development among the young guys — Hibbert, Darren Collison, Tyler Hansbrough, Paul George and Hill.

Want to be taken seriously right away? Hang tight with the Thunder on the road. Let’s see Hibbert bang with Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka down low. Let’s watch Danny Granger, Hill and George – the latter so tough on Derrick Rose in the postseason – take turns dealing with Kevin Durant. Let’s see if Collison is up for it against Russell Westbrook, his fellow UCLA guy. Fun stuff, gone.

Sad Keanu and Sad Greg Oden agree.

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Granger Has Dreaded Torn Plantar Fascia in Right Foot and Will Miss at Least a Month

by Jared Wade on December 8, 2009 at 2:42 pm · 7 comments

granger plantar fascia

Above is the Tweet of Death that I have been fearing from Mike Wells.

Danny Granger will be sidelined “at LEAST” a month after being forced out of the team’s last game against the Clippers with an apparent heel injury — something that has been bothering him since the preseason. And as anyone familiar with plantar fasciitis knows, this is a part of the body where the injury lingers long after the player is able to come back and play. It’s supposedly one of the more painful things you can go through, particularly among those more “minor,” non-Greg Oden-level injuries, so even once a guy comes back, he still usually isn’t “back back” for a while longer — if at all for the whole season really. (Ask a Spurs fan about Timmy’s plantar year if you want to hear all about the worst-case scenario.)

In his Indy Star injury annoncement, Wells adds that “No surgery is required, and Granger will begin rehabiliation immediately.”

So, yeah, this is not good. This is not good at all.

I think I half-sarcastically mentioned in the Clippers game recap that it might actually be interesting to see what the Pacers offense would look like if you removed the one guy who used nearly 1/4th of the teams possessions, largely to shoot threes. But I meant for, at most, a game or two. Not …  *checks the schedule* … 17 games. Wow. Not good. And that’s the best-case, he’s-only-out-30-days-exactly scenario. If he misses six weeks from today, that would be 23 games.

Good god.

Is the season completely lost? Our most likely answer is: probably.

It’s not certain because, as those with keen memories will recall, Danny missed a fair amount of time last year as well, and the Pacers managed to go 9-6 sans Granger. And that was even without Mike Dunleavy for all intents and purposes.

Your 8p9s co-writer Tim Donahue was quick to note, however, that those 9 wins without Danny last season came against opponents who finished the season with a combined .390 winning percentage and the only team of those nine with a winning record was Denver. Without Danny, Indiana beat (in chronological order): New Jersey (on the road), Clippers (at home), Milwaukee (home), Minnesota (road) Chicago (home), Memphis (home), Denver (home) and Sacramento (road).

That’s not exactly comforting.

And since Wednesday’s game comes against the now-Odenless Blazers, this has to be one of the most depressing NBA games I can remember for some time. It’s the “Our Season Is Totally Over Bowl.” Sponsored by, of course, the tears of orphans.

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