- Obviously, the big news surrounding the Wizards is still Etan Thomas' condition. Yesterday, he underwent successful surgery to repair a leaky aortic valve and so far everything appears to be fine. Ivan Carter has the scoop on his prognosis:
According to Hartzell Schaff, the cardiovascular surgeon who performed the four-hour operation, Thomas should regain full cardiac health and be able to continue his basketball career following a rehabilitation period."For most patients, recovery from heart surgery takes approximately four to six weeks, but for someone who has lots of physical activity in their life and especially for someone like Etan, it's certainly going to take at least two months to recover fully as regards to the healing of the sternum where the incision was made," Schaff said. "We think that the function of his heart and lungs should return to normal and it's possible that he can get back to playing professional-level basketball."
Though league sources have indicated that the Wizards expect Thomas to miss the entire season, neither Schaff nor Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld would rule out Thomas returning before the end of the season.
A comeback is possible before the end of the season, but obviously the important thing is to have a healthy recovery more than a speedy one at this point. If you're looking for what some of the players had to say about Etan's surgery, you can find that right here.
- ESPN has their fantasy basketball rankings out. Gilbert Arenas was the highest ranked point guard, while Antonio Daniels didn't crack the top 60 (What?!?). DeShawn Stevenson was ranked 34th among shooting guards. Caron Butler was ranked 7th among players at his position. At Power Forward, Jamison was ranked #10, Blatche was #53, and Darius Songaila ended up at #62. At Center, Haywood was ranked 27th and Etan Thomas ended up at #41. Obviously, the rankings were completed before Thomas' surgery.
- Some Pistons and Celtics fans are hopping on the anti-Wizards bandwagon. Or at least the anti-Gil bandwagon.
- At the end of this article it mentions that training camp invitees Willie Dean and Jamon Gordon have both been cut. Of course, WOTSTW could have told you this a couple of weeks ago...well, at least two-thirds of it.
- The Big Picture recently did an interview with Awful Announcing and AA recommended us as a blog to check out, and if you've ever read Awful Announcing you know he knows what he's talking about so we'll take as high praise from one of the best blogs out there.
- Speaking of great blogs, the BF reader that e-mailed me the tidbit about Antonio Daniels was Doctor Dribbles of the awesome blog We Rite Goode. Naturally, I feel like an idiot for not putting 2 and 2 together and realizing it was him sooner.
- Don't forget, the Wizards take on the Mavericks at the Patriot Center tonight, so try not to remind former UConn Husky Caron Butler who normally plays there:
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