Center Nikola Pekovic (ankle) and shooting guard Kevin Martin (wrist) are doing well in their rehab and after taking part in some contact drills on Wednesday, all signs point to a return to the active roster in a few weeks. 'They are making a littl wrote:Center Nikola Pekovic (ankle) and shooting guard Kevin Martin (wrist) are doing well in their rehab and after taking part in some contact drills on Wednesday, all signs point to a return to the active roster in a few weeks.
"They are making a little bit of progress," head coach Flip Saunders told the Pioneer Press.
The Wolves are also without Ricky Rubio (ankle) and his timeline to return is a bit behind Martin and Pekovic.
"He still has some soreness after ... he runs," Saunders said.
The trio suffered injuries within a 12 day period in November and so far they have missed a total of 79 games, according to Andy Greder.
Really hope that "few weeks" is isn't off and it ends up being shorter than that especially for Rubio.
I fear a lost season for Rubio. Obviously, the injury was significant. And, obviously, there's no reason to rush him back. The season is over. The crazy thing is that thus far, despite the season being a complete disaster with Ws and Ls... there's hope. IF Wiggins continues to improve and produce, the season is a "success."
1) Franchise prospect looks legit enough to keep fans at bay amid Rebuild v11.0
2) Injuries give Flip an excuse for losing 60 - 65 games.
3) The young kids get even more run with all the injures.
4) Team gets another very high draft pick next season.
I think Rubio will return, but I think he's brought back slowly and cautiously and maybe shut down for good not too soon after he returns. And that's disappointing. I know other people are extremely high on Rubio. But do we know for certain he can be THE guy or even THE guy next to the guy (Wiggins). Sure, he's a gifted passer and disruptive defender. But those flaws that have kept him around the middle of a very stacked position (shooting) haven't gone away in only 4 games.
So, we're four full years in with Rubio, and I still don't know exactly where he stands among his peers.
Pekovic and Martin are "a few weeks away", with Rubio behind them!? I thought Rubio was going to be ready to go any day now. This implies that January is a lost month. Sheesh!
Guys, I don't think we need to worry too much at this point about getting a one of the top 5 picks. Detroit is on a major roll, leaving us, New York, and Philly well behind the next tier of bad teams. I realize that this is a year of development, but part of developing is actually going out and winning some games. I also think it's helpful for young players to play with other good players. Playing Rubio will only help the development and confidence of our young guys.
I get that we don't want to rush people back, but the lack of transparency by the organization on the injuries on all three players is getting a little frustrating for us fans that actually like to see the team compete. Rather than hearing about this from NBA Insider, can the team please step up and give us a specific timetable for a couple of these guys? Argh!
Agreed Q, it sure would be nice if the team gave at least a very rough estimate on their returns.
As for not rushing Rubio back I completely agree and thankfully they're not doing it. Once he's back I hope they keep his minutes down around 30. All we need out of this season is improvement from the young talent, including Rubio and for all of them (Dieng, Bazz, Wiggins, Lavine, Rubio, with Daniels and maybe Bennett mixed in) to mesh & get good minutes together.
Q12543 wrote:I get that we don't want to rush people back, but the lack of transparency by the organization on the injuries on all three players is getting a little frustrating for us fans that actually like to see the team compete. Rather than hearing about this from NBA Insider, can the team please step up and give us a specific timetable for a couple of these guys? Argh!
All this information has been out for a while. It's coming directly from Flip and was included in Today's Strib: http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/287879901.html
Q12543 wrote:I get that we don't want to rush people back, but the lack of transparency by the organization on the injuries on all three players is getting a little frustrating for us fans that actually like to see the team compete. Rather than hearing about this from NBA Insider, can the team please step up and give us a specific timetable for a couple of these guys? Argh!
All this information has been out for a while. It's coming directly from Flip and was included in Today's Strib: http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/287879901.html
Ah, thanks. Well, that's the most we've heard in a long time. That really sucks frankly. Ugh.
It's just unbelievable to me that our three best players all get hit by injuries within a week or so of each other and then all three are out for literally months. Can't someone just tweak an ankle or knee and be out for a week or two!? I guess we shouldn't be surprised with Pek and Martin given their histories, but the Rubio ankle sprain and length of recovery really, really sucks.
I'm a believer that there are typically great picks to be had up and down the draft board, so I much prefer playing competitive basketball than this dumpster fire of a season - especially since we already have a pretty good stable of young talent. So pardon me if I don't get as excited as others about losing so many games.
Q12543 wrote:I get that we don't want to rush people back, but the lack of transparency by the organization on the injuries on all three players is getting a little frustrating for us fans that actually like to see the team compete. Rather than hearing about this from NBA Insider, can the team please step up and give us a specific timetable for a couple of these guys? Argh!
All this information has been out for a while. It's coming directly from Flip and was included in Today's Strib: http://www.startribune.com/sports/wolves/287879901.html
Ah, thanks. Well, that's the most we've heard in a long time. That really sucks frankly. Ugh.
It's just unbelievable to me that our three best players all get hit by injuries within a week or so of each other and then all three are out for literally months. Can't someone just tweak an ankle or knee and be out for a week or two!? I guess we shouldn't be surprised with Pek and Martin given their histories, but the Rubio ankle sprain and length of recovery really, really sucks.
I'm a believer that there are typically great picks to be had up and down the draft board, so I much prefer playing competitive basketball than this dumpster fire of a season - especially since we already have a pretty good stable of young talent. So pardon me if I don't get as excited as others about losing so many games.
I agree q. Play hard whenever you can. I think bigs can really come anywhere in the draft. Risks are often taken with the younger unpolished bigs leaving some great talent behind.
Q12543 wrote:Ah, thanks. Well, that's the most we've heard in a long time. That really sucks frankly. Ugh.
No problem. The Strib is normally pretty decent about providing updates. The only one that I never saw updates on was Turiaf. That seemed odd to me. But they've been updating Martin/Pek/Rubio pretty regularly. I've read Flip has even thrown out the idea of sending Martin/Pek to the D-League to get their legs back. Martin didn't sound too keen on that idea based on how I read his quotes.
