Fascinating comments from Paxson re: injuries...

Recently, some posters (commentators) here have speculated that Gordon may be malingering. That is, some believe he might be exaggerating the extent of his wrist injury in order to prove his value to the team and maximize his contract negotiating leverage.  Similarly, others believe he could play, but that he doesn't want to even remotely jeopardize his health prior to his summer as a restricted free agent, because doing so might adversely affect his market value. In an interview with Hanley, Paxson does little to dispel that perception. In fact, if you read between the lines, Paxson appears to indicate that, while Luol's injury is substantiated by MRI's, there is no diagnostic confirmation for Gordon's injury. It's entirely possible I am misinterpreting the quote, which is edited, but I thought it was telling nonetheless:

"I can't answer for them. What I've learned in my 25 years since I started playing in the league is that you have to listen to players and believe what they tell you about their bodies and their injuries. . . .You can't tell a player to play. We do all the medical stuff. . .everything we can do. At the end of the day, we really have no power to tell a player that you have to go out on the floor. Obviously, given the fact that Ben and Luol didn't get their [contract] extensions done, and the fact that we're not playing well this year, obviously fans want to know what the deal is. In the case of Luol, he had swelling in his Achilles. We at the position with him, with the All-Star break coming up next week, that rest was the big thing to get the swelling out and let the tendon heal. He's going to get a repeat MRI when we get back from this trip. But with just two home games before the break, rest was the key. It makes no sense to bring him back. We feel we're giving him the appropriate time off of it. Hopefully, that will allow him to play the last 30 games of the year. Again, there's not guarantee there.

"We have to get healthy first. My target date is right after the All-Star break (Feb. 15-17). I hope that with 30 games left we will have Gordon back, Deng back. My understanding is Ben Gordon is day to day. I'm going to try and touch base with him today and talk to him about what he's thinking."

The remainder of the article contains Paxson's thoughts on the playoffs and trades (Note that Paxson (a) states that Tyrus will get minutes; and (b) admits that Nocioni's large contract makes trades more difficult):

http://blogs.suntimes.com/bulls/