Carmelo Anthony has been injured a looooooooong time.
This thing with his left knee is not new. We know that. But we really never pinpointed it. Some thought he was injured during the second game of the New York Knicks’ season, a win over the Cleveland Cavaliers (how the hell did that happen again?).
Turns out those people were right.
From the New York Post‘s Marc Berman:
Carmelo Anthony played most of the season with a partial tear of the left patellar tendon, The Post has learned.
In new details, the debridement part of Thursday’s surgery was to clean out the calcium deposits that formed within the partial tear, so the tear could be repaired.
If Anthony had suffered a full tear of the patellar tendon — also known as a rupture — he could not have played on it this season. Ex-Knick Antonio McDyess suffered a full tear in 2000, as did the Giants’ Victor Cruz last season.
That last bit admittedly has nothing to do with what we’re talking about. Just wanted y’all to see Anthony’s name mentioned in the same paragraph as Antonio McDyess. But yeah…This is why Melo playing through his injury was such a big deal. He was playing through it f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Anthony played in 38 games after that, and then the All-Star Game. Including that All-Star Game, Melo played 1,395 minutes while still injured. It’s probably more, since he was injured against the Cavaliers and came back. So let’s make this an even 1,400 minutes Melo played while he was injured.
Correct, 1,400 minutes.
In 39 games (All-Star tilt counts).
Mostly for a Knicks team that isn’t going anywhere.
During a season that means nothing.
Cool.
This is why people should have been up in arms about Melo playing in the All-Star Game. Don’t listen to those who still think he should be playing now. Those people are idiots if that’s why they’re actually mad at him. The real problem is he didn’t shut it down earlier, upon learning he needed surgery. Prolonging the inevitable, however seemingly innocent, just to play in the All-Star Game was, and remains, dumb. That he logged 30 minutes in a game that somehow means less than any one Knicks contest makes it even worse.
Sure, it’s his decision. Personally, I totally get him wanting to represent New York as an All-Star. He won’t get that opportunity again in his career, to play All-Star ambassador. And had he been injured a week, or two weeks, or even three to four weeks before the festivities, we might have felt differently. But he was battered and bruised for pretty much all of this season. The smart thing to do, the safe thing to do, would have been to shut it down immediately. Get right. Return this season or don’t. Whatever. Just get right.
Yes, I’ll dismount my soapbox now. Just know that I, along with others, have no interest in telling Melo what to do. That’s not really it at all, even though it comes off that way. Risking further injury just to conserve yourself, on a team that doesn’t matter, for a game that doesn’t matter, simply makes no sense.
It’s water under the bridge now, I suppose. What’s done is done, and Melo is done for the season. Let’s all hope his link to the “debridement” process doesn’t pan out similarly to the fates of Danny Granger or Amar’e Stoudemire. That would suck.
