What to Expect After A-Rod's Controversial Surgery

The schedule this year is MUCH more condensed. Maybe the PRP has made him healthier if he has been able to increase his minutes in a season where there is much more basketball being played in fewer days. Just food for thought though

First, it didn’t make Kobe WORSE. And while Kobe didn’t have any significant injuries in 2010-2011…he did have some nagging injuries. His ankle, his right knee, his right wrist. All was NOT hunkey dorey….the injuries just didn’t force him to miss time.
http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2011/12/kobe-bryant-opens-up-on-injuries.html

Second, on A-rods stats last year (and the year before): He’s been injured. Now, that, in itself, is a problem. He needs to improve his durability and stay healthy. But I think his stats are likely a reflection of THAT problem as much as (and maybe more so) than a decline in ability. I think that’s borne out in your statistic regarding getting to fast balls: When your knee is shot (or, prior to that, your hip)…you’re not going to be able to turn around on a fast ball. You’re either going to be late, or you’re going to have no power in your swing. That, to my eyes, is what’s going on.

Now, the fact those are similar symptoms to the dreaded “father time” disease leaves all this up to debate. But I’m not sure we can conclude it’s A-rod losing a step UNTIL we see him go a decent portion of the season being healthy AND see a continued back slide. If we never see that…that answers the question, itself.

Teams are playing more frequently, in the shorter span. Kobe last year had a ton of nagging injuries, there is an improvement in almost all his stats over the stats from last year. Also if you watch him play, there is a huge improvement in how he’s moving, he looks more fluid and natural in his motions, unlike last year where he looked and played like he was laboring hard and just seemed old.

Kobe looks visibly more explosive. He looks healthy. For A-Rod, he might have less pain in his hip and any other joint, which could lead to good things.

..part of injury recovery is learning to “trust” your body again. To trust that it’s going to do what it did BEFORE you got hurt…and doing those things isn’t going to result in another injury. Often athletes (sometimes consciously, sometimes subconsciously) have a hard time with that…and that “mistrust” can lead to decreased performance or other injuries.

I suspect (but can’t prove) that was part of A-rods knee problem. He lacked trust in his hip (no matter what he was being told), so was altering his swing in a way that was putting too much stress on his knee. Even during spring training (where he looked pretty much like the old A-rod in terms of production), you could see it in his biomechanics.

If this procedure does NOTHING except help restore A-rods trust in his own body (someone mentioned the placebo effect…it’s sort of similar), that’s a good thing.

On the other hand, centaur surgical procedures are probably best left to veterenarians. Chances are that if ARod is injured this year, it will be somewhere other than the knee and shoulder that were treated. That doesn’t mean the treatments were effective, only that 37 year old athletes are injury prone.