How OG Anunoby’s elbow inadvertently generated a hurricane of craziness

“It’s just sore,” New York Knicks forward OG Anunoby told reporters after Thursday’s win against the Portland Trail Blazers. “Nothing happened.”

Either that’s a liar talking, or the world is conspiring against whatever this candid chap is trying to tell us.

“[I] just went for a ball, and [the elbow] hurt randomly, but it’s fine...,” Anunoby continued. “I haven’t [played] in a while. Just getting used to it.”

After returning from elbow surgery (undergone at the start of February) to face the Sixers last Tuesday, the Knicks threw Anunoby into the starting lineup for the second time this week last Thursday in a matchup against the Blazers in which New York grabbed their second dub in a row.

With a bit over 3:35 left in the first half, Anunoby did what he does best and what he’s done to no end in years past: strip a pass.

Right after that action, OG grabbed his elbow and everybody (kinda reasonably) started panicking.

Rewind two days to that initial comeback game against Philly, and by the midpoint of the final stanza Anunoby was sitting on the Knicks’ bench with his elbow molly-wrapped and looking like this.

Were the Knicks risking a re-injury by playing OG more than they should, sooner than they should? Was head coach Tom Thibodeau doing his forward a disservice by putting him in any sort of physical danger? Questions, questions!

Things got so mad, so quickly, that everybody was starting to lose their excrement after the game against the Blazer was over and crazily looking for answers. OG himself—by way of Fred Katz of The Athletic—provided them.

Nobody seemed to find that—again, the very freaking own player was the voice speaking—convincing.

Uh, oh, what was going on?

So derailed things have gone, that Stefan Bondy of the New York Post found it proper to call three—not one, not two, but three—different doctors to ask them about Anunoby’s elbow, his potential ailing problems, and whether or not he could have re-injured his surgically-repaired-but-damaged goods on Thursday. Seriously.

Doc One:

“He needs to shoot, he needs to practice, but at the same time, he needs to rest. But he’s a professional athlete, he needs to get out there. This is probably going to be something he feels the next few weeks. Resting and ice whenever he’s not practicing is super important.”

“I would recommend resting to alleviate the symptoms, but he’s a professional athlete and he’s an important part of the team. So if he really needs to [play] and he wants to at this stage, he can.” — Dr. Leon Popovitz, co-founder of New York Bone & Joint in NYC

Doc Two:

“If it happens here or there, or if it happens just a couple times incidentally, it’s not that concerning. And you’d expect that to happen in the first several weeks or couple months after the surgery. I think it’s more of a question if it happens more and more consistently. If it happens with noncontact activities, moving and shooting. If he ends up getting swelling after the game — which is going happen a little bit — but if it’s really dramatic and he has difficulty moving the elbow, those kinds of things. But at six weeks [after the surgery], having a couple episodes of pain during a high-intensity game isn’t overly concerning.”

“Maybe, if he continues to have discomfort, and he continues trying to play through it... then he may end up needing to be shut down again at some point. Unpredictable, but that’s your fear.” — Dr. Salil Gupta, clinical assistant professor at NYU

Doc Three:

“I would be concerned if his elbow was swollen, which it may be. I would be concerned if he didn’t have full range of motion in his elbow. And I would be concerned about how much pain he’s in. All of those things would factor into my level of concern. And if all those boxes would check off, it would necessitate a more extended period of rest.”

“Out of an abundance of caution, we could rest him a couple games and give him another try. Or, if he looks good in practice, has no pain, let him go at it again. I wouldn’t be fearful of letting him play from the standpoint that he would do some irreparable structural damage to his elbow. I would be more concerned that if he played and the elbow was inflamed, it would just not give it a chance for that inflammation to go away.” — Dr. Andrew S. Rokito, chief of the Division of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery at NYU Langone Orthopedics

At the end of the day, Bondy arrived at the ultimate and obvious takeaway, writing “The consensus is rest is the best way to avoid pain but maybe not necessary.”

I might be a healing expert without knowing, but there is this relationship between pain and rest and soreness and everything that we have experienced at some point in life to a bigger or smaller extent, right?

Y’all have to relax and exit this cycle more than OG Anunoby has to.

Capital Area Phisical Threapy & Wellness