Alterique Gilbert ready to go!

[MadDogRevival]

You said "expect nothing," which, in my mind, places you among the camp that has written him off. I am more hopeful, that is all.

I think you're being too hard on @bmayuc. Every one of us on this board is pulling for AG. Every one of us hopes the kid's shoulder is 100%.
It's great that the docs who did the surgery said this and that about how his shoulder is now from Krpyton, or whatever. It's great that those in the know are uniformly, publicly positive.
I have zero medical expertise or even basic passing knowledge of shoulders.
But I know people and their tendency toward hyperbole, doctors or ditch diggers.
I hope the kid is fixed and never has to go through the heartbreak of reinjury, which, at this point, would likely be career ending.
But, I'm a realist, and I don't care what the number one expert in the world said - I'll be holding my breath every time the kid dives to the floor hard, 8893 - as will you, notwithstanding all that you've written.

 

[8893]

I think you're being too hard on @bmayuc. Every one of us on this board is pulling for AG. Every one of us hopes the kid's shoulder is 100%.
It's great that the docs who did the surgery said this and that about how his shoulder is now from Krpyton, or whatever. It's great that those in the know are uniformly, publicly positive.
I have zero medical expertise or even basic passing knowledge of shoulders.
But I know people and their tendency toward hyperbole, doctors or ditch diggers.
I hope the kid is fixed and never has to go through the heartbreak of reinjury, which, at this point, would likely be career ending.
But, I'm a realist, and I don't care what the number one expert in the world said - I'll be holding my breath every time the kid dives to the floor hard, 8893 - as will you, notwithstanding all that you've written.

As with most things here, there is a spectrum of fan reactions, ranging from those who have written him off and rue the fact that Ollie even honored the scholarship after his high school injury, to those who have him penciled in as our starting point guard next season, and everything in between those two posts.

I lean much closer to penciling him in as our starting point guard, but yes my optimism is guarded and I will be nervous when he drives hard to the hole and takes hits along the way, when he dives to the floor, etc.

I just like the story and think that he and we could really use a nice ending to it. Doesn't always happen that way, but I still root for it.

 

[Stinger92860]

2 chronically unstable shoulders from high school football injuries and 15 years of meeting with different orthopedic doctors telling me that the complexity of the shoulder makes for high rate of failure (compared to other joints), a high rate of re-occurrence, etc.

Look I hope he comes in and becomes and All-American. But we should all set expectations at "I hope" and not "I know" in terms of his production and durability.

This is now 3 strait years where he was derailed by shoulder injuries and multiple "successful surgeries". So, just, we should reflect that risk in our portrait of what he can do.

I’ve had 3 shoulder surgeries in the last 6 years. It’s the best I’ve felt since I was in my 20’s. I play pickup 2-4 days a week. I am thinking of trying tennis again. That said I’m nowhere near what I was was all those years ago, but I have been able to increase my physical activity without any issues so far. Everyone is different. I’ve been lucky.

 

[The Funster]

No reason he can't go out there and play 35 minutes, giving us 18 pts, 6 assists and a couple of steals a game.

 

[Kitaman]

Kinda bummer that he'll be a 21 year old freshman when the season starts. I hope his full recovery will make things right for him. Kid deserves a break.

 

[businesslawyer]

Super. Andrews is well-respected. When he gets through 7 strait games without a season ending shoulder injury, which he hasn't done in 3 years, perhaps I'll re-evaluate and re-adjust expectations.

I'm guessing Andrews isn't sleeping well at night given that your personal experience as a patient might be contradictory to the knowledge he has on shoulder injuries and the surgeries involved and he might be putting out conclusions that aren't state of the art. Or maybe not.

 

[pj]

No reason he can't go out there and play 35 minutes, giving us 18 pts, 6 assists and a couple of steals a game.

I'd feel better limiting him to 20 minutes, 18 points, 6 assists and 2 steals per game. For a little while, to protect his shoulder.

 

[uconngb]

No reason he can't go out there and play 35 minutes, giving us 18 pts, 6 assists and a couple of steals a game.

You are someone who clearly understands how to keep expectations to a minimum. I think this sets the bar pretty low, everything else will just be gravy.

 

[gtcam]

This is great news for a great kid coming from a great kid
He has spunk and I am beyond convinced that a healthy AG would have made a HUGE difference the past 2 seasons
I pray that he will be able to play pain free and not have an overwhelming concern that something bad will happen - I understand that there will always be a sense of concern but he doesn't need it being the dominant issue in his mind when he's on the floor.
I am so happy for him

 

[freescooter]

I hope his optimism shows to be well deserved but I’m in the camp that says if he returns and stays healthy that will be a potentially huge bonus.

There are really 3 elements.
1. Does the repair work
2. Confidence in the repair
3. Getting his game back.

It is really easy to say those are all ok in May. December might be a different story though.

 

[fgbrault]

Alterique, all the best in your recovery. We can all learn from you. Am praying.

 

[Horatio]

Hey old guys that are on this thread talking about shoulder injuries you suffered in 1978 while playing in canvas sneakers- Please stop!!! (Exaggeration) The surgeries of today are far better and Andrews is supposed to be the best. Besides, the surgery was performed by Andrew's with Shuri in Wakanda so it’s Guaranteed to be perfect.
​

 

[mauconnfan]

Hey old guys that are on this thread talking about shoulder injuries you suffered in 1978 while playing in canvas sneakers- Please stop!!! (Exaggeration) The surgeries of today are far better and
Andrews is supposed to be the best. Besides, the surgery was performed by
Andrew's with Shuri in Wakanda so its
Guaranteed to be perfect.
​

I haven't had any shoulder surgeries but I still take offense to the "old guys" assumption. I mean we all know that if Mickey Mantle suffered that knee injury from the drain nowadays he would hardly have lost a step. Oh crap does bringing up Mantles injury in the 50's make me old?

 

[browndog319]

I've quoted my first post where I literally start my 2nd to last sentence with "I hope". In this thread.

To your second point, the entire point of posting the article I did from nearly exactly a year ago is to show that the "people who performed the surgery and the other medical professionals" and even Alterique himself said he was 100% almost exactly a year ago. That's the whole point. I posted it for that sole purpose. To show that experts are wrong. That even the player himself was wrong.

So, take all this with a huge grain of salt. I'm not sure there has even been an "unsuccessful" surgery in athletes who publicly require a good outcome to maintain their future potential professional value.

Right? So just keep expectations low. I don't get why what i said is controversial or requires multiple replies. It was just a quick, straitforward exercise in expectation setting for the kid before this board goes off the deep end and sets him up for failure.

Orthopedic guys are not all the same. I dislocated my ankle and developed a permanent condition called CRPS from it. They all said “nothing we can do” other than try a TENS machine for pain and some PT. I literally had paralysis in toes. Started seeing a guy who does plasma rich platelet stuff (and other pain management stuff). Two years later I grew ligaments back. I still have slight paralysis in my toes but I can run again with limited discomfort and stiffness and I now walk without a limp. I was cleared for skiing.

Screw orthos. If they can’t cut you, they’re useless.

 

[upstater]

Hey old guys that are on this thread talking about shoulder injuries you suffered in 1978 while playing in canvas sneakers- Please stop!!! (Exaggeration) The surgeries of today are far better and
Andrews is supposed to be the best. Besides, the surgery was performed by
Andrew's with Shuri in Wakanda so its
Guaranteed to be perfect.
​

But... Andrews said he knows little about shoulder surgeries.
So he referred Alterique to a specialist in Colorado.
Anyhow--your point still stands.

 

[intlzncster]

I’ve had 3 shoulder surgeries in the last 6 years. It’s the best I’ve felt since I was in my 20’s. I play pickup 2-4 days a week. I am thinking of trying tennis again. That said I’m nowhere near what I was was all those years ago, but I have been able to increase my physical activity without any issues so far. Everyone is different. I’ve been lucky.

I'm guessing you're also a fair bit older than Alterique too though. Some of it is growing older. 35 yr old vs a 20 year old is light years difference. You could be 24 and my post meaningless in this context, but just throwing it out there.

 

[intlzncster]

Kinda bummer that he'll be a 21 year old freshman when the season starts. I hope his full recovery will make things right for him. Kid deserves a break.

Could end up being a tremendous advantage for UCONN in a couple of years though.

 

[intlzncster]

I hope his optimism shows to be well deserved but I’m in the camp that says if he returns and stays healthy that will be a potentially huge bonus.

There are really 3 elements.
1. Does the repair work
2. Confidence in the repair
3. Getting his game back.

It is really easy to say those are all ok in May. December might be a different story though.

I'm relatively confident in #1, only because of the success rate (95%) of the Laterjet surgery. People acting like all shoulder surgeries (and injuries) are the same. Far, far from it.

#2 is going to take at least a season. After than many years out, and that many injuries, I've no doubt he'll be tentative throughout. At the least, it will be in on his mind.

#3 will take at least a year imo. He's had no 'real' offseason in three years. There's huge amounts of rust and huge amounts of lost development.

That said, if he stays healthy, his talent alone will help UCONN quite a bit. His style of play on top of that. We need a hard nose, gritty guy who gets after you. Tough leadership. He's got tremendous value in that alone.

 

[sledog]

What a fantastic story! Not only the physical, but AG has also hit the Zen-zone in a positive way. Sounds like it'll be great. Pre his op, I mentioned that Steadman Hawkins at Vail was a fantastic place for complex shoulders (and knees), and looked forward to a very positive result. He could not have gone to a better place. Voila!

 

[jibsey]

Could end up being a tremendous advantage for UCONN in a couple of years though.

In my mind it’s an advantage now having the maturity that age brings. His strengths are handle, distribution, and midrange and ?I expect that Jalen will be better because of him. He can make the 3 and I hope he works to improve on that.

 

[intlzncster]

In my mind it’s an advantage now having the maturity that age brings. His strengths are handle, distribution, and midrange and ?I expect that Jalen will be better because of him. He can make the 3 and I hope he works to improve on that.

True, I just think it's going to be a rocky year for him. Not in a terrible way, but there's a lot of hurdles for him to overcome.

 

[August_West]

I like how he admitted the team had lacked heart and toughness.

William Shea?

 

[August_West]

There are MDs here who said they think his career is done, so I don’t know how much that counts for.

Zero

 

[PAHusky]

Calling Christian Vital, your chances at making the league go up astronomically if you stick around for a year and can figure out how to get open and drain uncontested threes when JA and a healthy AG are scything through the lane....

 

[Giddyup5]

The recurrence rate for Latarjet is extremely low (<5%). In addition, the case series that his surgeon (Provencher) has reported for his recurrence rates are even lower (<1-3%).

The issue is not will his shoulder dislocate again; that is very very unlikely.

The question Hoop and I have brought up is what will be his performance secondary to the surgery. There is no literature at all looking at basketball performance after a Latarjet procedure--the data just doesn't exist yet. Furthermore, long term (I'm talking 15+ years) patients with laterjet about 50% of them develop arthritis. That shouldn't effect his playing career, but may affect him as he gets older.