Milwaukee Bucks Blog - The Bob Boozer Jinx : Lauren Jackson

Injections for all: Bogut ankle injury not as serious as thought; Lauren Jackson

J.D. Mo — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:02:00 GMT

Bucks center Andrew Bogut's injured left ankle, which he twisted Wednesday landing on Kobe Bryant's foot early in the 3rd quarter of Australia's 116-85 loss to Team USA, is just a sprain, according to Aussie publication The Age.

Bogut had told Journal Sentinel's Gary D'Amato after the game that he thought he had possibly torn a ligament.

An MRI, however, revealed that it was not as serious as thought and "possibly only a minor sprain," the Age reported.

At this point the Bucks probably should make a serious inquiry into the Australia Boomers' handling of Bogut's ankle injuries. Injuries, you say? Yes, there was more than one. Bogut injured an ankle July 31 in a pre-Olympic exhibition tournament against Angola.

Bogut on Thursday emailed TMJ4's Lance Allen to say, "My right was bad - it just got better, and now my left is sore ..." - the first indication that the injures occured to separate ankles. Whatever the case, the Bucks should get a more definitive answer, given how Bogut assumed he had ripped a ligament and how the initial ankle injury three weeks ago was apparently handled.

There was no mention in the press of Bogut turning an ankle in the Angola exhibition, yet somehow it "swelled up" the next day after an entire half of basketball against Argentina. When Bogut was removed from the game, Australia was up 19 points. When he didn't return as his team lost the lead and the game, questions were raised. The Aussie press termed it a "minor ankle injury."

Four days later, Bogut was still resting the ankle, sitting out an exhibition Aug. 5 vs. Team USA. Suddenly, the injury wasn't so minor and had been upgraded to "he rolled it pretty good," according to Aussie coach Brian Goorjian. Repeat swelling was "a concern" but Bogut was guaranteed to play in Olympic game 1 against Croatia. This was the first time the coach had talked to the media about the injury. It was also the last discussion of Bogut's ankle(s) in the press by the team until he landed on Kobe's foot Wednesday.

Bogut did start in the Aug. 10 game -- nine days after the injury against Angola -- and while it looked to me like he was moving well on both feet, he played like a tenderfoot. Bogut didn't start the second half as the Boomers lost 97-82 and looked bad doing it. Things didn't get much better the next game, Aug. 12 against Argentina, as Australia spotted Argentina a 20-3 lead and lost 85-68. It was not until Aug. 16 vs. Russia, more than two weeks after the initial injury, that Bogut returned to form, scoring 22 in Australia's face-saving and surprisingly easy 95-80 victory. What ankle injury?

Let's go back and look at the alleged injury July 31, if we can find it. If Bogut "rolled it pretty good" against Angola that night, he showed no effects of an injured ankle. He scored 32 pts and hauled down 11 rebs, almost single-handedly pulling the Boomers into the game with 12 fourth quarter points and a game-tying hoop-and-one in the final minute. The Boomers won on a last-second 3-pointer.

When Bogut came out of the next day's game vs. Argentina and didn't return, it was naturally assumed he was injured vs. Argentina. That's how the Journal Sentinel reported it and how it wired around the internet. No, Goorjian was sure to explain a few days later, it was injured against Angola. Apparently, Bogut must have hurt himself on the last play or two of the game, or this was one funny, slow swelling "minor" ankle sprain. Rolled ankles usually swell up quickly (I'm kind of an expert, having rolled each of mine at least six or seven times playing ball).

If Australia Basketball is to be believed about the timing of the injury, the Bucks have every right to ask what sort of treatment he received that allowed him to get through the Angola game without any evidence of an ankle injury. They also have every right to know why he played the next day in a meaningless tuneup game. I'd also want to know why Bogut and the Boomers, who had been together a month, looked against Croatia Aug. 10 like they had just met in the parking lot. Something was not right with Bogut, and not right with the team.

The medical questions demand asking in light of news this week from the women's side of Basketball Australia. Star center Lauren Jackson revealed Wednesday that she's taken injections in her ankle to get through the Olympics and will have surgery after the games. Apparently this was unbeknownst to her WNBA team, the Seattle Storm, who had given her five WNBA games off before the league's Olympic break so she could train early with Australia. The surgery will end her WNBA season.

Ankle ligaments may have been on Bogut's mind because on Tuesday Australia guard Penny Taylor tore hers. Despite the severity of the injury, Aussie trainers seem to think they'll have her ready to play against the U.S. on Saturday, four days after the injury. Taylor plays for the Phoenix Mercury. (Taylor did, in fact, play on Saturday).

The WNBA doesn't pay its players anywhere near the minimum NBA salary. (Even Jackson, arguably the world's best female basketball player, plays in Russia in the winter for the money.) As a result, WNBA teams have limited leverage when it comes to the Olympics.

The Milwaukee Bucks, having staked a guaranteed $60 million in Bogut, have every right to know what's going on around their center's ankles. When the Aussie coach who was not-so-forthcoming about the first ankle injury tells reporters the day after the second injury that “I think we’re talking about a 48-hour thing," I wouldn't breath a sigh of relief -- not when Aussie team doctors are treating Penny Taylor's ligament damage as a possible three or four day thing.

There is much at stake for Australia basketball in these Olympics. Australia's National Basketball League is failing. Fan interest is lagging. The country's hoops organizations have been merged into one entity to "reform the sport in Australia." Because the international men's and women's programs are high profile successes, they carry Basketball Australia's hopes of rekindled national interest. It follows then that whatever is done (or not done) as far as treating player injuries has Basketball Australia's interests at heart -- not the interests of the NBA team in Milwaukee.

Goorjian's "48-hour thing" comment came in response to a reporter's question about whether the coach expected a call from the Bucks. He said no, he didn't. He may not, if all the Bucks care about is the latest injury, which is out of Basketball Australia's hands as Bogut seeks a second opinion with his home doctors. But something tells me GM Hammond and the Bucks team doctors will want to know more.

Of course an NBA team takes a risk when it allows a player to play for his country, but this should extend to the risk of injury, not to the treatment of injuries. Full disclosure of medical treatment is not too much to ask. And if it becomes a problem, you may see NBA teams taking the stance Cleveland Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry did when his center, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, informed the Cavs of his plans to play for Lithuania this summer.

Ferry said nyet.

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Now that Bogut's off resting his swollen ankles ...

Lauren Jackson said she'd run "five times nude around the athletes village" if the Aussie men pulled off a miracle upset of Kobe and Team USA. With such great incentive going for them, how could those blokes have dropped the ball?

....

Team USA defensive dunkfest awes China; Croats gun Aussies, Bogut onto their arses; killer Lauren Jackson

J.D. Mo — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 09:49:00 GMT

One word: DEFENSE If you've been following the Olympic roads of Team USA and Australia and Andrew Bogut, what you witnessed Sunday morning in the teams' opening games was a stunning contrast in how to play basketball defense and how not to play basketball defense.

Team Redeem, led by Jason Kidd, Kobe Bryant and center Dwight Howard, clamped one of the tightest defenses I've ever seen in an Olympics on an inspired, yet overmatched, Chinese team and won easily 101-70. The U.S. threw a full court man-to-man at China from the opening tip on, and didn't let up on or off the ball until the host team buckled about 15 minutes into it. China, led by Yao Ming, some plucky point guard play and good shooting, impressed the estimated 1 billion TV viewers (and the president in the stands) by weathering the U.S. intensity for as as long as they did. It was the most-watched basketball game in world history.

The Australia Boomers and Bucks center Bogut, unfortunately, had come out two hours earlier and slouched up a sagging man-to-man defense against Croatia that was nearly the opposite of Team USA's relentless D. The Aussies didn't stop the ball, overhelped on minor penetration and, as a result, left the deadly Croatian shooters wide open on the wings all game long. The Croats whipped the ball around at will and shot an unheard of 67 percent from the floor, hitting 12-16 three pointers and burying the Aussies 97-82 in a game that didn't seem that close.

Interbasket has the lowdown on all of yesterday's games including box scores.

Bogut didn't play well, and looked as though he didn't know where he was supposed to be on the court. He only shot three times (3-3) and finished with 10 pts and ONE rebound. He shot 4-6 from the line, turned the ball over four times and had two assists. Croat center Kresimer Loncar outplayed him with 10 pts, 10 rebs. To be fair, nobody on Australia played well. They looked like a drunk rec team with a passed out coach, while making the Croats look more like little Larry Birds than a bunch of guys who grew up idolizing Toni Kukoc (not such a bad role model, judging by this game). If the Aussies don't find some intensity and a better defensive plan, they might as well go home.

Not a good day for Bucks players: Michael Redd generally enters the game in the 2nd Quarter as part of Team USA's 3rd or 4th wave. The idea seems to be that once the relentless U.S. defense has worn out the opponent, Redd's job is to gun them down with threes. Against China Redd fell flat in his first run and was yanked after playing just 2:45. He didn't score until the rout was well on in in the second half and finished with 9 pts on 3-9 shooting (3-7 from behind the arc). The USA was again led by Dwyane Wade with 19 and Lebron James with 18 pts, 6 rebs, 3 assists -- and its defense. The Team Redeem shooters are not shooting well. Kobe shot 1-7 on threes as he, Redd and Carmelo Anthony shot a combined 4-17 behind the arc. C'mon guys, it's only 20' 9" from the basket. Next up is Angola on Tuesday.

Not a good day for a former Buck: Yi Jianlian couldn't get a shot to fall in the first half (0-6) and ended his growing frustration with an "unsportsmanlike" foul before being sent to the bench with about three minutes to play in the half. Although his shot was not falling, I didn't think he was playing poorly. Physically, he was holding his own, and getting himself some good looks against a tough defense. The shots just wouldn't fall for him until the 2nd half. ESPN's Chris Sheridan didn't see it that way, however, and devoted his post game column to Yi looking worse than one of Beijing's "smog-filled panoramas." Ouch. Yi finished with 9 pts on 4-13 shooting.

Sheridan added this tidbit from Michael Redd (also yanked in the first half, remember) on Yi and the New Jersey trade:

"You know, what I did see from him in the fourth quarter was resilience. He struggled, but he was still being aggressive. And as a young player you like to see that out of him. He has a lot of growing to do, but he's going to be terrific," Michael Redd said afterward of his former Bucks teammate, who he described as a nice, Americanized kid already well-versed in U.S. street lingo.

To which I responded, "Well, you guys got the better of that trade."

To which Redd quickly responded: "We did, oh we did, we did, we did, we did. We're happy, no question." (I played the tape back five times to make sure I had an accurate count of "we dids.")

And are probably not done, oh not done, not done, not done, not done ... Watching Bogut, Yi and Redd start their Olympics on the wrong foot was an unexpected reminder of the 2007-08 Bucks and their woes, oh their woes, their woes, their woes, their woes. I was hoping not to think about those during the Olympics.

Bogut ankle injury update: Bogut moved around fairly well against Croatia, but Aussie media is reporting that their center was slowed by the ankle injury sustained against Angola July 31. This has been a funny injury. Supposedly it swelled the day after the Angola game against Argentina, and was described as a "minor" ankle injury. Four days later, Aussie coach Goorjian was still resting Bogut but saying then that "he rolled it pretty good." Bogut may be hurt worse than the team initially let on, in which case the Aussie trainers had no business playing him in the meaningless game against Argentina.

Bogut practiced in the days leading up to Croatia, so I don't think it's the ankle that's bothering him. The Aussies seem to be having problems integrating Bogut into the team mix, and that ankle's becoming a bit of a crutch for this larger problem. ... Next up for Bogut is Argentina and Manu Ginobili and Luis Scola. Australia built a 19-point lead 3rd quarter lead in the tuneup game Aug. 1 before collapsing in a 95-91 loss.

USA players rave about the Aussies: It's certainly possible that Croatia was the nightmare matchup for Australia. If Team USA players are any judge of their competition thus far in China, the Aussies chances of winning their first Olympic basketball medal were looking up until Sunday.

After beating the Aussie's 87-76 in a friendly game Aug. 5, members of Team Redeem deemed the Aussies tougher than European champ Russia and Lithuania -- two of the four teams Australia has upcoming in Group A play. Pistons forward Tayshaun Prince:

"I think out of all those teams that we played Australia was the team that had the complete package. They had shooters, they had agressive drivers, big guys who can shoot outside, great ball-handlers who can shoot and drive. All the other teams we played they had shooters but not drivers or drivers but not shooters. With Australia, everybody was able to do something and I think that's why they were able to stick around throughout the game."

Bogut didn't play in that game, and much of the praise centered on Australia's 20-year-old guard Patty Mills. The backup point guard, who will be a sophomore at Division 1 St. Mary's (CA) this fall, impressed with his speed and quickness, and had Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Jason Kidd chasing on D. They declared Mills an NBA prospect. "If he continues to work hard he definitely has a future in the NBA," Kidd said.

Wha' eh? No game foto from our sheela's romp against Belarus? Just give the blokes Lauren Jackson's ***! You gotta love the Aussie approach to media. The world champion Australia Opals "mauled" Belarus 83-64 to open the women's Olympic tournament late Friday (as reported by FIBA). Aussie basketball's official website commemorated the strong start by putting its best chest forward, accompanying the game story with the magazine cover-like shot to your left of Jackson's jersey-wrapped bazoomas. She had 18 in the game. Did I mention this was done on the official Basketball Australia website?

Give the art director a raise.

Now Jackson's talking about killing people and broken bones and broken noses. The Aussie and USA women, the favorites to meet in the gold medal game, are having a trash talk war.

Here's the video (can't get it embedded).

And here's what she does when she's not trashtalking Lisa Leslie:

Down Unders give Team USA a reality check; Aussie coach Goorjian on why he held Bogut out; Lauren Jackson

J.D. Mo — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 10:19:00 GMT

If ever there was an air of invincibility surrounding Lebron James and Kobe Bryant's Team USA, the Australia Boomers hacked it away Tuesday in Shanghai, China, in the final pre-Olympic "friendly" game for both teams. Despite a notable lack of energy and poor shooting games from Kobe, Carmelo Anthony and the Bucks' Michael Redd, the U.S. held on to win 87-76.

Redd played only eight minutes, scored two points and missed all three of his three point attempts. Australia played without Bucks center Andrew Bogut, nursing a rolled ankle, but the Aussies roared out of the second half with a 13-2 run and refused to go away until the final minutes.

I know, I know, I wrote in my last post that Bogut was almost certain to play. I seem to have fallen prey to the old American attitude about Olympic basketball -- I just don't take it as seriously as the rest of the world does. I see it as a fun tournament, a celebration of basketball worldwide played by teams that wouldn't beat the Boston Celtics. It only matters if or when the U.S. loses. Then the fun stops.

Tuesday's game could well have been the only time the U.S. and Australia meet in China (they're in different groups and Australia is not a medal favorite). So I also figured the Bucks center wouldn't let a minor injury keep him out of a matchup against All-NBA Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, who's outplayed Bogut nearly every time they've faced each other.

Wrong. Too much NBA thinking. The Aussies, who have never won an Olympic men's basketball medal, have other ideas. They think the Beijing Olympics are their best shot to date and decided to take a "precautionary" measure in a game that didn't count by resting Bogut, who rolled his ankle last week against Angola. How do we know this? Aussie coach Brian Goorjian finally -- five days after the injury --- gave reporters a Bogut update in the postgame interviews (find audio here). Goorjian also guaranteed that Bogut would play Sunday in Australia's first Olympic game against Croatia:

"He's had an ankle problem after the Angola game and we played him against Argentina in the first half and it swelled up and was a problem. So he hasn't trained since then and we set our target for him to come back for the Croatia game. It would have been nice [had he played against the U.S.] because the team has played very little with him but it was too big of a risk on that ankle for him to play. But he will play in game one against Croatia."

Reporter: Any doubt he'll play against Croatia?

"There is no doubt. It was precautionary. It's swollen and it blew up after [the Argentina game]. We don't know how it will go after that point but he will definitely play against Croatia."

Reporter: Was Goorjian worried that it would flare up during the game?

"He rolled it pretty good and it's a concern. With this team the one positive is we've had him very little and, as you saw tonight, we had [big men] David Anderson and Matt Nielson in [foul] trouble --- those are really our profile guys --- and those younger guys have been playing a lot together before they arrived. We've developed a style of play without Andrew that is competitive. If we get Andrew, we feel like we've got a chance. We've got our fingers crossed, but he will play against Croatia and, hopefully, it will grow from there."

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Would Bogut have helped the Aussies against the USA? Somewhat. He would have been tangled up in the paint with Howard, and the trapezoidal lane of international ball doesn't help either player offensively. But Bogut's presence might have freed other players for Australia and forced US Coach Mike Krzyzewski to play less smallball. As it was, Lebron got minutes at center against Australia 7-footers Chris Antsey and Anderson, and 6' 11" forward Nielson. Toronto forward Chris Bosh spent three-fourths of the game on the bench. Utah's Carlos Boozer didn't play at all.

The game was rough and foul-marred, with the teams missing a combined 20 free throws and Kobe and Antsey squaring off in the second quarter -- typical stiffarm Australian stuff. The Aussies turned the ball over 18 times but Team USA countered by misfiring jumpers all game long, shooting just 3-18 from behind the arc against Australia's sagging man-to-man defense. Steals and transition made the difference, as Dwyane Wade led all scorers with 22 points. Lebron had an interesting line: 16 pts, 4 assists and 5 steals in 33 minutes.

From the Australia perspective, the whistles blew on them far too often again -- a trend that international refs will probably continue into the Olympics -- and they turned the ball over too much, especially in the first half as the U.S. took a 15-point lead into halftime. But the positives far outweighed the negatives: the Aussie shooters shot well, point guard Patty Mills' quickness off the bench surprised the U.S. guards, and five players scored in double figures, led by Mills and Antsey with 13. Their best player didn't play, yet they shocked Team USA to start the second half and made it a game. If the Aussies were a sleeper pick for a medal before the game, they may have lost that status.

So Team USA got a bit of a reality check in a game that didn't count. The "Redeem Team" got lazy against an opponent that can shoot and play defense. There are better shooting teams than Australia in the Olympic games -- Spain, Greece and Argentina come to mind. There is no team in the Olympics, however, that D's it up like Australia does, Detroit Pistons style. It didn't seem to bother Lebron and D-Wade much but Kobe got caught up in the physical play. And Carmelo? After a while the Nuggets forward looked liked he'd just as soon be somewhere else, kind of like he did in the playoffs against the Lakers. ... If these two teams don't get a rematch in the Olympics with Bogut on the court, it'd be too bad

USA women top Australia Opals 71-67: On the women's side, the USA-Australia dynamic is a bit more intense. They're the hands-down favorites for a third straight Olympic gold medal matchup, with the edge to the US. It's the usual star WNBA suspects, some of the best female players ever. Lauren Jackson for the Aussies and Lisa Leslie, Candace Parker and Sue Bird for the U.S. The warmup game yesterday in Haining, China, was a scrapfest until it ended, with Aussie point guard Penny Taylor, another WNBA star, finishing with a black eye on her way to leading all scorers with 19. Leslie led the way for the US with 13.

Definitely a heated rivalry to keep an eye on in these games, if for no other reason than Lauren Jackson.

Yes, the Australian mag cover's four years old, and it is truly a shame that the photo spread inside cannot be posted here.