Minnesota Sports Forum

I fully admit that when it comes to potential good news about the teams I love, I am an unabashed kool aid drinker. But with that disclaimer, I'm feeling quite optimistic about news we have read about Pek's surgery. We clearly saw Pek's value to the team this year, both on offense and defense...he provides an inside presence that none of our other "centers" can match. And frankly, until we learned more about the nature of his surgery, I had essentially written him off...I just wasn't convinced he would ever be able to stay healthy enough to contribute.

But now we have learned that the surgeon shaved the excess bone that has been causing him so much pain in his foot. I think this is significant news. Sure, Pek has had other nagging injuries that have limited his minutes, but his biggest (and potentially career ending) issue has been his foot pain. If this surgery is instrumental in solving this one issue, this is huge news for the Wolves' future.

What do others think about this surgery and Pek's future?

LST - I think this huge. It is good to find out they didn't see any structural issues or tissue damage. I hope this allows him to play 60+ games a year, but I just worry he will be closer to 50 games.

I'm not even penciling him into our plan for next year. Could that change? Maybe, but I'm looking forward at:

PF: Garnett / Bjelica
C: Towns / Dieng

As a 6' 11" 300lb athlete you are always going to struggle with stress related injuries.

Pek will never play an 82 game season. It is about managing him properly and getting him playing 55 - 65 regular season games a season. Dieng is capable at filling in and maybe we get lucky with Towns.

Just wish we had competent medical and training staff.

Voted 50 games, but I would amend that if he changed his body composition.

Admittedly I want to drink the Kool-Aid, but as Kiwi points out, the man is 300lbs of pure muscle. He may not experience this exact foot issue again, but he will experience other joint and muscle related problems because he simply carries too much weight. When you then take into consideration his size and strength is a big part of his game, how effective can he become if he was asked to drop 20-30 of those ell-bees? I think he would be fine, but I also don't think the Wolves medical and coaching staff would be smart enough to ask him to do it.

Pek needs to work on fitness. He was out of shape and is going to keep having injuries and long term health problems if he keeps this up. I am surprised this guy didn't get as much flack as our rookies this year. He was one of the major components of ruining competitive basketball for our team. I didn't see the same bounce in him at all when he was here, and this was not just and injury issue. The quickness was gone.

I still remember Flip praising the Mayo clinic for figuring out Pek's ankle issues earlier in the season only to have him miss 60-70 games AGAIN!

I don't believe anything Flip says at this point, and realize that we are destined to fail if we continue to bank on chronically injured players year after year.

Pek is a pussy, and acts like his arm was cut off every time he gets a scratch. He will never play fifty games in a season, and is more likley to be limited to 20. It certainly doesn't help that we have Adelman's doppleganger as our coach, playing guys way too many minutes on a nightly basis in meaningless games.

What happened to that new training staff Flip talked about when taking the job? Do we even have a "strength and conditioning" coach?

We need to get Pek to retire so we have him off the books.

Did we ever hear what they found in Rubio's exploratory surgery? or is "it was successful" all we will hear.

I'm not as optimistic, I'll say 40 games, Garnett at 40 games. We'll have a lot of expensive part time employees again next season

sjm34 wrote:
I don't believe anything Flip says at this point, and realize that we are destined to fail if we continue to bank on chronically injured players year after year.

I agree with you.

Camden wrote:I'm not even penciling him into our plan for next year. Could that change? Maybe, but I'm looking forward at:

PF: Garnett / Bjelica
C: Towns / Dieng

That would help great. I really hope Bjelica comes over.