He’s getting a rest, according to the latest NBA injury report.
This is a “big f****** deal,” as Joe Biden once said. Griffin has scored 31, 38, and 50 points against the Sixers in three games this season while grabbing 39 rebounds. Detroit has lost four straight and they played last night against the Pelicans while Philly is coming off two full days of rest.
Sixers should win this one pretty easily at home. Knock on wood.
I know we’re on Markelle Fultz overload, but this is an interesting nugget making the social media rounds.
Landry Fields spent five seasons in the NBA before a nerve issue in his right arm led to multiple surgeries and forced an adjustment to his shooting form. It was an issue that played a role in bringing his career to an end a few short years later.
Wednesday, Fields popped up on Twitter in response to a weeks-old tweet pointing out the similarities between his and Markelle’s struggles:
Looks very familiar, yes.
— Landry Fields (@landryfields) December 5, 2018
It’s not technically the same thing, the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome that Fultz was diagnosed with, but there’s a lot of similar stuff that shows up on tape, after the jump:
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The NFC playoff picture is a hot mess, but for the Eagles, things are pretty simple. Beat the Cowboys, move into first-place atop the NFC East, and live to fight for a division championship down the stretch. Lose and it’s over. Yeah, the Eagles wouldn’t be mathematically eliminated with a second loss to Dallas in five weeks, but they would need to run the table against a brutal schedule, while the Cowboys would need to
Nice surprise on a Thursday morning.
I’ll read anything I can regarding Allen Iverson, and this morning a Players’ Tribune article on AI popped up out of nowhere.
It’s called “Allen,” and features a couple of great stories, this one in particular from a road game he played at Villanova as a Georgetown standout under coach John Thompson:
There were four men, making some noise way up in the stands. And they all had on handcuffs….. and chains..…. and orange jumpsuits. Those kinds of orange jumpsuits. And I remember the sign they were holding up — clear as day. It said:
ALLEN IVERSON: THE NEXT MJ
But then it had “MJ” crossed out. And they had markered in “OJ.”
….
Here’s what Coach Thompson, MY coach, did for me on that night: He didn’t ask for their sign to be confiscated. He didn’t yell and shout and make a scene. No. See, what Coach did is he calmly walked over to us, player by player, and told us that — don’t worry about our things — we were leaving the floor. That’s it: We were leaving the floor. No big drama. Heads held high. We were there…. and then we were gone.
And then once we were off that floor, and it was just Coach back on the court? He calmly told those refs, he said, “Hey, no disrespect. No disrespect to y’all. But here’s what’s going to happen: If you don’t get those four pieces of sh*t outta here, and I’m talking immediately — we’re gonna be forfeiting this game. Understood?”
Iverson goes on to reveal some details about himself that we might not know. He likes to draw. He’s a movie buff. The point of the article is to carry us beyond the “practice!?” quote and the Ty Lue stepover and all of the same old things that we connect to A.I.
I loved this passage explaining why he chose to dress the way he did, after the jump:
We’ve seen this movie before.
It’s not a great movie. It’s less like The Shawshank Redemption and more like Highlander 2: The Quickening.
Plot: the Sixers go on the road, turn the ball over, give up offensive rebounds, and allow the home team to shoot about a dozen more shots. That’s what happened last night, as Brett Brown’s team coughed it up 21 times and allowed 17 offensive boards to the tune of a 100 to 88 shot disparity.
That alone is enough to explain the 11-point loss, but there were layers to last night’s disappointment. Joel Embiid played one of his worst games a Sixer. Ben Simmons only took six shots. The entire team shot 31% from three, they fouled too much, and they didn’t spend enough time at the other free throw line.
I think the ultimate disappointment is that the Sixers did play well in bunches last night. They won the first and third quarters. This game was competitive for 6-7 minutes of the fourth quarter. The Raptors didn’t shoot particularly well and didn’t exactly blow this game wide open. You could argue that the Sixers looked better in Toronto this time around, much better than what they displayed in the 17-point October loss.
They’re just not there yet. You need at least three of Jimmy Butler, Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons, and JJ Redick to play well to beat the Raptors on the road, and only two of those guys had good games last night.
Brett Brown joked about his “selective amnesia” when attempting to recall the Sixers’ 17-point October loss in Toronto.
It was said in jest on Tuesday afternoon, but there’s certainly validity in totally forgetting about that game, a game in which Ben Simmons turned the ball over 11 times as the Sixers stumbled on both ends of the floor.
Tonight’s lineup won’t look anything like the lineup we saw in Toronto the first time around, when the Sixers rolled out this starting five:
One of those guys is now on the shelf indefinitely while two are no longer here, so you’re gonna get this tonight:
Which lineup is better? I think most people are probably taking the second one, which has ripped off nine wins in the last 10 games.
I’ve heard the same things everybody else has.
Markelle Fultz has apparently been to something like 10 specialists in an effort to discover what’s wrong with his shoulder. Only yesterday did we finally get a diagnosis for the shoulder issue that ails him, a diagnosis of “Thoracic Outlet Syndrome.”
TOS, in simple terms, is a compression of the Thoracic Outlet located in the area between the lower neck and upper chest. That “outlet” consists of the Brachial Plexus and an artery and vein located just below the clavicle.
Here’s a handy diagram, courtesy of Hopkins Medicine, that shows the area in question:
The circled area is the Thoracic Outlet, which contains the Plexus (yellow), the subclavian artery (red), and the subclavian vein (blue). The Brachial Plexus is basically a network of nerves that extends from your spinal cord through your neck and over the ribcage into your armpit. While nerves are present in this area, TOS isn’t considered a “nerve issue,” it’s categorized as a group of disorders and not one specific thing.
There is, however, a bit of discrepancy in the language used by the Sixers and Markelle’s agent, Raymond Brothers, because in the press release the team says he has “Thoracic Outlet Syndrome” while Brothers told Adrian Wojnarowski that Markelle has “Neurogenic Thoracic Outlet Syndrome,” which would suggest that the compression is on the nerve bundle and not the veins. A “vascular” TOS would be the compression of those veins instead, which is easier to diagnose than the neurogenic variety because the patient would have altered pulsations or more identifiable blood vessel issues. The neurogenic version of TOS is said to be more common but harder to diagnose.
People with TOS will suffer from their collarbone, chest muscle, or neck muscle pushing against one or more of the aforementioned vessels or nerves, which results in pain in the neck and shoulders or a numbness and weakness that shoots down to the hand and fingers. The sensations are inconsistent and TOS presents itself in a somewhat erratic way.
You may recall a few weeks ago we wrote about a Markelle Fultz conspiracy theory that was making the rounds on social media.
This theory posited that Markelle was dealing with nerve damage in the shoulder and neck area, resulting in the hindrance of his ability to shoot a basketball.
He’s been out of the lineup for more than a week now, seeing specialists at the direction of his agent, Raymond Brothers. This evening, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski shared information from Brothers regarding the results of those consultations.
Woj:
Agent Raymond Brothers: “Markelle (Fultz) has been diagnosed with Neurogenic Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, (TOS), a physical injury.
TOS affects nerves between the neck and shoulder resulting in abnormal functional movement and range of motion, thus severely shoot a basketball…”— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2018
Clarification: “…thus severely limiting Markelle’s ability to shoot a basketball. TOS is treatable by physical therapy.”
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2018
Fultz had visited several specialists in the past week and his attorney/agent tells ESPN that this TOS syndrome has been a finding on his neck and shooting shoulder. https://t.co/kQkabp6IIt
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2018
The Sixers are calling Fultz out "indefinitely" but there's optimism that he can return within an approximate range of three to six weeks, league sources tell ESPN. Timetable will depend upon success of rehab to ease symptoms and pain tolerance.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) December 4, 2018
As I’ve mentioned before, the Sixers have said that Markelle Fultz is not injured and that there is no lingering issue from the scapular muscular imbalance that kept him out of action for much of last year.
The last discussion we had with both Brett Brown and Markelle regarding this situation dates back to November 6th, when the topic came up in regard to the deleted Drew Hanlen tweet which suggested that the Sixers’ second-year guard was “still not healthy.”
Said Brown on 11/6:
“You know, I think nobody is ever 100% healthy. To the best of my knowledge he’s healthy enough to go do what he’s doing. I only (recently) learned about the, what was it.. what do we call it? The tweet.. (Markelle) will speak for himself, but he’s been playing basketball and doing well. He’s fine.”
Brown went on to reiterate that there was no “conspiracy theory” surrounding Fultz or his health.
Markelle himself then spoke to the media a few minutes later:
Wilson Chandler moved around the floor with no real issues that I could see on Tuesday afternoon.
The Sixers’ starting power forward did not appear on the injury report and it looks like he’ll be a full go for Wednesday night’s highly anticipated matchup in Toronto. Chandler took a knee to the thigh in the Washington win and did not play on Sunday against the Grizzlies.
He wasn’t running wind sprints inside the gymnasium, but he looked fine doing some light work during the part of training that was open to us:
Some Chandler, who is not listed on injury report: pic.twitter.com/vV0d5OFlHI
— Kevin Kinkead (@Kevin_Kinkead) December 4, 2018
Jonah Bolden also practiced with the squad today and will be available in Canada after missing about two weeks with a cortical crack in his right fibula. The injury report only lists Markelle Fultz (shoulder consultation), Justin Patton, (right foot surgery), and Zhaire Smith (Jones fracture).
Practice quotes were all over the place today, with questions about the Raptors, Jimmy Butler and Ben Simmons’ headbands, and everything in between.
Here are some notes from the availability:
