The Memphis Grizzlies seemed to have just about everything in the NBA Universe trending their way heading into this season. Zach Randolph had appeared to be reborn as not only a quality locker room guy but also a Top-10 NBA player at the close of last year. He was about to team-up again with Marc Gasol to form arguably the best interior playing one-two punch in the game. Mike Conley was continuing to progress. Tony Allen’s enthusiasm was oozing out into the Twittersphere with each of this seven exclamation points per tweet. Rudy Gay was back, and OJ Mayo was even talking team.
Then the Memphis Grizzlies started their season 1-3. Then Z-Bo went down with a partially torn MCL. As quickly as it all appeared to arrive, even quicker than that it appeared that the Grizzlies were once again, the Grizzlies.
But fear not fans of the team who once called Vancouver, Canada home. Zach Randolph is reportedly coming back! After being sidelined since a January 1st game in Chicago where Memphis lost by 40 points, Randolph is now targeting the March 2nd date with the Toronto Raptors to make his triumphant return to the line-up.
This according to Fox Sports Tennessee:
Injured Grizzlies forward Zach Randolph, who has been on crutches with his right knee braced after sustaining a partially torn MCL, will began rehab this week, according to Fred Azar, an orthopedic surgeon who’s the Grizzlies’ team physician.
Azar thinks Randolph’s MCL injury is a Grade 2, and he decided against surgery. With rehab and conditioning, Randolph’s target date for return is at Toronto on March 2. He would have missed 31 games, almost half of the lockout-shortened 66-game season.
“We’re pretty sure he’s going to come back this season playing with a protective brace,” Azar said of the 30-year-old Randolph, who reported to the team this season in the best shape of his career. “But we won’t let him go back until the MCL is completely healed. The key thing for him is staying in shape with his conditioning as he does the rehab simultaneously. We expect him to go back to playing with a protective brace.”
The question then, for the currently 7-6 Grizz, is how close will they be to contending for a playoff spot out West at that point. Assuming the rehab and conditioning goes according to plan, Randolph could be healthy enough to play the remaining 31 games of the Grizzlies season if he makes his debut that night in Toronto. If last season holds true as a bottom line barometer for playoff eligibility in the Western Conference, the Grizzlies would need to finish this season posting a winning percentage somewhere around the .561 mark they did as the 8-seed last year. That would be winning an equivalent of 37 games or so in this lockout shortened season. So far they’ve won 7.
We’ll see what happens on all that when it eventually does though. In the meantime, at least it’s good that Z-Bo could come back for a substantial part of this season still possibly. There was a time it seemed it might be even worse than that for both him and his team.
