Hornets Hype

Is this too blunt?

I just don’t.

Recently a lot of Hornets fans and other people around the internet seem to have an opinion about Chris Paul’s knee surgery. Or, specifically, Chris Paul’s knee surgery coupled with Darren Collison’s solid play in his absence, and what this could mean for the future of the franchise. This discussion usually occurs with melodramatic hyperbole, ie: “Chris Paul is never going to be the same again!”

We’ve actually heard this before, last season, when the Hornets tried to trade Tyson Chandler at the deadline and the trade was rescinded because he failed his physical in Oklahoma City. The internet was rife with speculation and presumption: “The Hornets must know something we don’t.” “Anyway we all know Tyson Chandler will never play at that level again.” “His career is over, it’s good we got rid of him.” And then the worst thing that could have happened in the world happened: Tyson Chandler actually has missed 22 games in Charlotte due to the same two injuries in the same foot. From the reaction from some quarters of the Hornets internet, you’d think this had spontaneously given people medical degrees. Because THEY WERE RIGHT.

Let me tell you a story. A couple weeks ago, I was reading a blog, and some sanctimonious douche in the comment thread took it upon himself to critique the grammar of the original poster, rather than respond to the content of the post. I read the comment and was left baffled and slightly embarrassed for the person. See, I majored in English, specifically writing, and I’ve taught English in the past. What the person had spent two paragraphs laying out– in pretentious and condescending language, of course– was not an actual grammatical term. It just wasn’t a real thing. The person clearly thought it was a real thing… but it just wasn’t.

And the thing is, grammar is the kind of thing you can look up on a wiki. You can’t look up how to operate on people’s body parts with FRICKIN LASER BEAMS on a wiki. This is all a long-winded way of saying that the point you may think you are making, when you expound on something about which you have no expertise, you might not really be making at all. You may even– I know, gasp!– be saying things that an actual medical professional is sitting in her chair giggling at on coffee break.

So when you offer comments such as “CHRIS PAUL IS NEVER GOING TO BE THE SAME AGAIN AFTER THIS SURGERY EVERYONE KNOWS IT THE HORNETS ARE JUST HIDING IT TRADE HIM NOW,” my first question is, Are you in the medical field? My second question is, Are you a doctor? My third question is, Are you an orthopedic surgeon? My fourth question is, Are you one of the top orthopedic surgeons in sports medicine in the United States? My fifth question is, Have you been sent back in time from the future using Skynet technology? If the answer to none of those questions is yes, you can be quite comfortable in assuming that I don’t care about your medical opinion.

I might be persuaded to make an exception, if you can convince me you have in fact had surgery on your own meniscus at least 2+ years ago, and would like to offer your personal experience with the level of pain, recovery time, etc. But I would still take it with a huge grain of salt, because there is a wide range of difference in how people recover from injuries and surgeries, and (no offense to your health insurance) the level of therapy and care an NBA player receives is probably higher than the level you got. Grant Hill almost died in 2003, yet is still in the NBA at age 37. Dejuan Blair has no freakin’ ACLs. It is pointless to sit and judge what an injury will or will not do to a player until the surgery is over, rehab is completed, and he’s been back playing for about 6 months to a year.

So, you may want to try and tell me these things, things like “Darren Collison is going to be a starting caliber point guard so the Hornets need to trade Chris Paul RIGHT NOW while his value is high.” But I will just refer you to the title of this post, which, in case you forgot, is “I Don’t Care About Your Pretend Medical Opinion.” The reason I titled it that… is because I don’t care. I’m not against free speech. I’m not against you having an opinion that is different from mine. I’m just letting you know that, on this topic at least, it is quite impossible for you to make me care about it, unless your answers to questions 2 through 5, as listed above, are yes. (And on #5, it really is going to depend on if you’re a terminator or not, because I am not sure I trust anything terminators say, no offense.) So you should not waste your time.

Just for gits and shiggles, here are some other things I don’t care about, so you can not bother talking to me about them either:

• reality TV
• major league baseball
• Tracy McGrady

Thank you for your time and have a good day.