Is this the end of the road for Pau Gasol’s playing career?
Pau Gasol was waived by the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday after being unable to return from foot surgery. Is this the end of his playing career?
Future Hall of Famer Pau Gasol was waived by the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday afternoon after being unable to successfully recover from a surgical procedure to repair a stress fracture of the navicular bone in his left foot. The four-time All-NBA center underwent surgery in May 2019 and has found the road to recovery to be an arduous one.
“The injury that I’ve been dealing with, and for which I underwent surgery last May, can take anywhere from six to 12 months to heal completely,” Gasol said in an Instagram video announcing his release. “I underwent surgery in hopes it would expedite my return, but unfortunately, in the last few days, we have assessed that my recovery is going to take longer. than we originally hoped for.”
Navicular fractures are an unfortunately common injury among NBA players; other household names to suffer the same injury include Joel Embiid and Bill Walton. But what exactly is the navicular bone and why is it such a common, and difficult, injury for NBA players to recover from?
The navicular bone is located on the inside of the foot and is one of the tarsal bones, which comprise the midfoot. The tarsal bones help form the three arches of the foot – the medial, lateral, and transverse – of which the navicular is a member of two, the medial and transverse.
The arches of the foot hold two main functions. The first is to make the foot adaptable to its terrain while the second is to help transform the foot into a rigid lever to push off with during activities such as walking and running.
Repetitive running, jumping, and other athletic activities place quite a bit of force through the tarsal bones and, as such, are often the leading cause of fracture. Just like with any other bone, the navicular can be fractured both acutely as well as chronically; a chronic fracture is also known as a stress fracture.
Stress fractures occur when the cells that build bone – osteoblasts – aren’t able to maintain pace with the cells that breakdown bone – osteoclasts. This imbalanced remodeling is often caused by exposure to chronic, repetitive overload, which, in layman’s terms, means a significant amount of sprinting, jumping, and cutting.
This is the main reason why navicular fractures are so common amongst NBA players, particularly those that play the four or five; the players at these positions are usually taller and heavier, meaning their bones and joints are subjected to more force than their brethren who play guard.
Navicular fractures – whether acute or chronic – are usually treated conservatively to begin with unless it is determined that the fracture is severe enough to require surgery. Conservative treatment for a navicular fracture includes a period of time in which a boot must be worn to reduce the amount of force placed through the bone followed by a return to play protocol that involves strengthening the muscles of the legs while improving the range of motion of the foot and ankle.
Surgery to repair a broken navicular bone involves inserting a few pins into the bone to promote union – or the repairing of the fracture line. After the surgery is completed, the return to play protocol is more or less the same, however, the time in which the athlete is in a boot may be extended. As of now, there doesn’t seem to be an indication as to whether conservative or surgical treatment for navicular fractures is more effective than the other.
An unfortunate aspect of navicular fractures, however, is that they often are very slow to heal – whether treated conservatively or surgically – and in some cases, they never heal completely. This phenomenon is known as non-union and is the byproduct of the navicular bone having relatively poor blood supply compared to the other bones in the body. Fractures of bones with good blood supply usually heal within 4-6 weeks, whereas navicular fractures can take 6-8 weeks or, in Gasol’s case, significantly longer.
The elephant in the room now centers around the question of whether or not Gasol will ever return to NBA action. It is probably still too early to tell at this point if his pesky navicular fracture will be the demise of his long and storied career, however, from an outsider’s perspective, the outlook is grim.
Gasol averaged a career-low 3.9 points per game in a measly 360 minutes for the San Antonio Spurs and Milwaukee Bucks last season and, even when healthy, it appeared that the pace and space era had left the 39-year-old center in the dust. Gasol’s defense trailed off dramatically over the last few seasons and his offensive prowess was unable to respond to the new NBA. Even if Gasol’s injury is not the reaper of his storied basketball career, unfortunately, his current skill set just might be.
However, Gasol isn’t going to let the hungry whale that is his navicular fracture drag him into the depths of retirement without a fight.
Says Gasol, “I have the same excitement and passion for the game of basketball that I had when I first started playing and I will work as hard as I can on my recovery with a clear goal in mind: to get healthy in order to continue to play the game that I love.”