Can Bynum make similar recovery as Wall?
by Jason Wolf, USA TODAY Sports
PHILADELPHIA — John Wall sat in the corner of the visitors’ locker room before a game at the Wells Fargo Center late last month, heavy wraps keeping heating pads affixed to his knees.
It had been 2½ weeks since Wall made his long-awaited season debut with the Washington Wizards and nearly seven weeks since Dr. David Altchek injected his ailing left knee with Synvisc-One, a compound that lubricates and cushions the joint, relieving osteoarthritis pain for up to six months.
Andrew Bynum visited that very same doctor, who administered those very same injections, the very next day.
Wall and Bynum, as it turns out, seem to have a lot in common.
Both the Wizards point guard and Philadelphia 76ers center entered the season as supposed centerpieces of their teams, and both missed more time than expected with bone and cartilage damage in their knees.
Wall, the first draft pick in 2010, sat out the first 33 games. Bynum, meanwhile, has yet to practice or play since the Sixers acquired the 7-foot, one-time All-Star from the Los Angeles Lakers in a four-team trade in August. Bynum has missed 51 games and while he recently said he hopes to make his Sixers debut by the end of this month, that appears unlikely to happen. He may not even play at all this season.
Bynum’s agent has prohibited Altchek from publicly discussing his client’s condition. And the Sixers, who originally said Bynum would be ready for the season opener on Oct. 31, have declined to comment on a series of reports in The News Journal in November, when one of the top knee surgeons in the country surmised that Bynum’s condition was likely to keep him sidelined until late March at the earliest, and possibly cost him the entire season. Less than a week after the articles were published, Sixers general manager Tony DiLeo announced that Bynum was out indefinitely.
Although Wall and Bynum may not have suffered the exact same injury or extent of damage, the same tissues were affected and they shared a common goal – to ensure the stability of their knees before returning to play pro … [For more on Can Bynum make similar recovery as John Wall?, click here.]
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