One game, one very sad and scary thing: v1. 21
I’m not trying to be alarmist here, but it’s hard not be. That was alarming as hell.
As I watched T.J. Ford going down like a rag doll in the fourth quarter my only thoughts were: a) please move something and b) regardless of what happens, is this the end of Ford’s career?
Far and away the most important concern is the former. The reports from Atlanta are that Ford does have feeling in his extremities and he’s spent the night in hospital there.
I’m going to assume that the worst didn’t happen. I’m going to assume that Ford will be able walk and move and lift his beautiful little son up like he loves to do.
If he can’t then what else really matters?
But if he can clear that essential hurdle then you have to consider the latter: How long is T.J. Ford destined to play in the NBA? You can’t help but wonder if he’ll play again. There’s no way anyone can be sure that he should.
Doubtless any normal sized person who gets slapped hard in the head by Al Horford is going to go down, and go down hard. Al Horford is a big man.
But since I was at home for this one I was able to watch it frame-by-frame. It wasn’t pleasant viewing. Normally I’m the type who can’t watch a replay of a sprained ankle.
But to my untrained eye it was instructive. If you look at it carefully it’s apparent that Ford was out, or at least in some way compromised, before his head ever hit that floor in Atlanta.
Horford’s hand comes down on Ford’s head and pulls it back, compressing the neck with considerable force. An instant later Ford’s body is still in the air but it’s changed in attitude. He’s slumping. He’s got no sense of where he is. He makes no effort to adjust his fall or break it by reaching back with his arms.
It’s sack of potatoes time and Ford’s backside lands first setting up that nasty whip-lash effect which a lot of hockey and boxing people will tell you is the source of the worst concussions: It’s not the initial blow, it’s the bounce off the ice or the ring floor that does the damage.
Right now a plain old concussion, scary as they are, would sound pretty good to T.J. Ford, I bet.
When the Raptors traded for Ford in the summer of 2006 they did a very thorough medical evaluation. The reason was that Ford had missed half of his rookie season and all of his second NBA season because he required surgery to fuse to vertebrae in his neck after an on-court collision left him feeling numb all over and required him to be taken away on a stretcher.
There was a risk, but in Ford’s case all the best advice was that it was an acceptable risk, not out of line with the risk any professional athlete takes.
It’s becoming ever clearer that that kind of evaluation -- which Ford has been the subject of time and time again in his basketball career -- is at best wishful thinking.
The summer before Ford was to enter the University of Texas he had another scary moment when he hit the floor and didn’t get up. He was diagnosed with spinal stenosis, which, put simply, is abnormal narrowing of the openings of the vertebra through which the spinal cord runs.
Surgery was considered and but eventually ruled out and Ford enjoyed two stellar seasons at the University of Texas without incident.
