Lockout puts injured players in odd position for rehab work

The trip to Orlando has been a welcome respite from the hours of rehab that West is doing in Raleigh, N.C., as he continues his recovery from a torn ACL in his left leg suffered last March 24 in Salt Lake City. Two to three times a day, five or six days a week, West is at the Athletic Performance Center in Raleigh, making rapid progress in his return. After his last visit two weeks ago to New York to see Dr. David Altchek, who performed the surgery, West's prognosis is now that he'd be ready for the start of the 2011-12 season -- if it starts on time.

"The way I'm looking at it, by October, I should be fully healthy," West said Monday morning. "When I go see Dr. Altchek in October, he should be giving me clearance to go out there and do my thing."

The lockout has been an obvious impediment in so many areas, but few are as crucial as the roadblock it presents to injured players trying to rehabilitate their injuries. Players and their agents are forbidden from having any contact with their existing teams, including their teams' medical and training staffs. A player coming off a serious injury, like West, would normally spend hours at his team's practice facility, working with physical therapists and trainers that have spent years gaining that player's confidence and trust. That trust is especially necessary when a player is vulnerable, uncertain if he'll return to past form.

But now, players are on their own, paying for doctors and trainers out of their own pockets -- one more expense with no paychecks coming in.

West, though, has no choice. The 30-year-old opted out of the final year of his contract -- which would have paid him $7.5 million next season -- after suffering the injury. It is a gamble, to be sure, when no one knows what the new rules are going to be in a new collective bargaining agreement. But West believes he will get paid what a two-time All-Star should.

"He knows he has to be ready because it's such a big year for him," said West's agent, Lance Young.

West and Young insist that their decision to opt out will be vindicated when the lockout ends and West goes on the market.

"I talked to my agent, and my whole thing is, I just want to see what's out there," West said. "I'm not saying New Orleans isn't a possibility. I want to see what's out there. and I want an opportunity to win. I'll be 31 at the end of the summer and no matter how great I feel physically and mentally, every year you don't win is a wasted year, a blown year, an opportunity you'll never get back. I don't want any more of those years. I've played eight years. And I want the next three or four years to be different."

Said Young: "When we did the last contract (a five-year, $45 million deal), we worked on front-loading it and trying to get $10 million (in average salary) for him after his third year. The fifth year was $7.5 million. When we did the deal with Jeff (Bower, the Hornets' former general manager), I told David this $7.5 million at the end is just an insurance policy in case you get hurt. When he tore his ACL I said this is what we were looking at. He outplayed his contract. He could get $7.5 million in insurance if he was hit by a bus or something. He just thinks he can go out on the market and get a better deal than that."

he could conceivably sign a short deal with the Hornets and test free agency again in a year or two. In the interim, West made sure that teammate Chris Paul knew what was going on, and what was important to him.

"He's got the same mindset I have, just wanting to win," West said. "Dallas getting to the Finals and wining it all, having a guy (Tyson Chandler) that was a part of our core just a few years ago be on that team, it did something to me. It changed my mindset. I just want an opportunity to get on that stage."

Most players rehabilitating injuries have had to scramble to find comparable facilities. But West knew where he wanted to go. He'd grown up in the Raleigh area, playing at Garner High School, and has an offseason home there.

"I took it all into account, the fact that there would be a lockout," West said. "I just assumed there would be. If I had gone down to New Orleans and started working out down there, when the lockout came I would have to end my rehab there and start it somewhere else. From the beginning I said I would do my rehab in one place, with the same doctors, and plus being close to home. I knew some of the Carolina Panthers football players in the area. They do some of their work there. It was an easy choice for me."

"They have a great program for the soccer team at Duke and he was going to go there," Young said. "Then he talked with a couple of the (Carolina) Hurricane (NHL) players and a couple of people that his brother knew in Raleigh. A lot of the football players, when they had knee injuries, they go to this place. And it's only 15 minutes from his house ... it was obviously convenienlty located. And he has two small kids and a wife, and they didn't want to relocate to IMG (in Florida) or Chicgao for four or five months. He wanted to enjoy the house he's never in in Raleigh."