Brandon Roy says he never retired, just put career on “pause”

Remember last December, when Portland used its one-time amnesty on Brandon Roy and his agent said for former All-Star “has no intention of returning to professional basketball” because of his degenerative knee condition?

We were all just misreading the signs.

Apparently. Roy was introduced as the newest member of the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday and gave his perspective of how his exit from the Blazers and basketball at the start of last season when down. Here is the quote, from Ben Golliver of the brilliant Blazers’ Edge.

Well, it never really was officially my decision to retire. With the process in Portland, I met with the team doctor, we talked for awhile, we have a really, really good relationship. He’s a guy that’s been working with me for five years with my knees. It was a situation where I went in for the physical, he thought it would be in my best interests to stop playing basketball because of my knees. We pretty much left it up to the team to decide if they wanted to pursue the medical retirement route. After a week, they decided to use the amnesty. For me, it was never that I was retired. My knees were a situation that I was going to have to think about if I wanted to continue playing. After a few months of sitting out, I decided, ‘Hey, I don’t want to stop playing basketball.’ It’s something I want to continue going forward with. It’s never a situation where I said, ‘I’m done forever.’ It was more of a pause.”

Interesting perspective. I can’t question that’s how he saw things, I’ll just say I don’t think anyone else in basketball (or maybe in the United States) saw it that way.

Roy has gone and had the Regenokine treatment — the Kobe knee treatment — that is supposed to generate cartridge and help the body fight its own degenerative, arthritic ways and essentially stop or reverse the process. Kobe and other athletes swear by it, if you’re a fan of anecdotal evidence on medical treatments.

It apparently has helped, he has reportedly looked good in workouts.

I hope so. I want very much for Roy to return to the game at his old level and make a huge impact in Minnesota. He was one of my favorite players to watch in the league.

But the first few games is not the test. The NBA season is a grind. How are his knees on the second night of a back-to-back in February? How are they at game 65? Those are the real tests. That is when we know if the treatments really had the desired impact.