11-25-2025, 04:25 PM
(11-25-2025, 04:08 PM)michaeltex Wrote: TC had a lot of lower leg injuries back when he was with NO. Even cancelled a trade with OKC when he couldn't pass their physical.
Bill Walton also had foot/leg problems off and on.
Seems like Lively missed time at Duke for an injury early in the season then played the rest of the way.
Final thought...could this be part of the stealth tank plan? Keep his minutes controlled, be ultra-conservative with any aches and pains and get him past the foot issues and robustly healthy for the next season. When there may be Flagg + a shiny new lottery pick to build around.
I hate looking at (another) losing season, but it may be the best way to go.
I don't think it's part of a stealth tank plan, but I do think this bad run of injuries he has been on, going back to last year, might be the result of some misguided effort by a bad medical staff to help make the on court product as competitive as possible. There's not much point to pushing that agenda anymore, so if there's anything to that speculation, I suppose you could call it a stealth tank in a sense. Either way, what I hope, personally, is that they're taking a step back in order to actually fix whatever problems he's experiencing chronically (hopefully, this is possible). Sit him as long as it takes to give him a chance to prove he can stay healthy. No more risks of any kind (this year, at least).
All I know is that without Lively, any hope for the next few seasons flies right out the window, so I hope they can get his health under control.