This is a tough break:
Tyson Chandler fractured his leg Tuesday night. He bumped knees with Charlotte’s Kemba Walker, he stayed down, he hobbled off the court, wincing the whole way. X-rays were “inconclusive.” The MRI was not. So Chandler is out four to six weeks, and if it’s the full six that means 21 games, and there’s no telling what the Knicks’ record could look like by then. Is 12-13 possible? Is 10-15? Something better? Something much worse?
This is a good break:
As Chandler disappeared to the locker room, a friend of mine who is both a lunatic Knicks fan and a physician started frantically texting me, panicked about where the team’s trainers were placing the ice, about how much agony he seemed to be in, and the final message before he undoubtedly sought refuge in a saloon was this: “I’ll wager $100 it’s an ACL. Out for the year.” Well, it wasn’t, and he isn’t, which means that while Dr. Buddy nurses his hangover and writes a check to the American Heart Association, the Knicks can brace themselves for what suddenly feels like a blistering grind of a season to come. But still is a season.
So yes: on balance, Wednesday was a good day for the Knicks, or what passes for a good day around a team that has already produced a month’s worth of drama in four small games. Losing Chandler for the season would have been ruinous, and judging by how ineffective the team was after he left the game Tuesday night both defensively and on the boards, this shouts at grim times ahead for the next month and a half.
“All we can do is nurse [Chandler] back,” Mike Woodson told ESPN Radio Wednesday. “It’s going to be a four- to six-week process and then welcome him back with open arms because at the end of the day he is a big piece to what we’re doing. He was the reason why we had the success we had in the last two seasons and we are going to need him in a uniform soon.”
It is a withering blow to the Knicks, and yet another one to a sporting city that has grown a little too used to disabled lists, injured reserved lists and high-priced, high-profile talent disappearing for weeks — sometimes months — at a time.
In little over a year, from the moment in extra innings of Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS when Derek Jeter crumpled to the grass at Yankee Stadium, New York has seen a rash of physical devastation across the board that has become staggering enough the Nets might want to consider bubble wrap for Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Brook Lopez.
Jeter missed all but 17 games this year with aching legs. Mark Teixeira missed all but 15 after busting up his wrist at the World Baseball Classic. Matt Harvey’s elbow sent the Mets fan base — already reeling from two months worth of disabled David Wright — into a full-blown funk. Mark Sanchez won’t take a snap thanks to his banged-up shoulder this year. Chris Snee’s hip has cost him his football season. Rick Nash’s concussion issues have kept him off the ice for all but three games this season …
Are we missing anyone else?
That list alone is good for roughly $75 million in salary this year when you throw Chandlers $13 million into the mix (and bloats to a round $100 million if you’d care to add Alex Rodriguez’s trick hip), and while this isn’t exactly the kind of thing the Elias Sports Bureau does, it stands to reason this is as banged-up, bruised and bleeding as New York sports has been in an awfully long time.
If not ever.
The Knicks, of course, were already prepared to hold their breath every time Carmelo Anthony drove to the basket (and, in fact, his bum shoulder got bent back terribly during one move against the Bobcats), and any time they want to see the pitiful effect pain can gave on a game, all they have to do is look at Amar’e Stoudemire’s scuffles every other night.
Pro sports is a brutal business, and nobody knows that better than New York City right now. How tough a room is it? The Knicks just lost their most indispensable player for upwards of six weeks and 21 games.
And were breathing a sigh of relief for their great good fortune.