Roberson settling in for ‘slow grind’ of return from injury
As he settled into a tall chair at the Thunder practice facility on Wednesday, Andre Roberson leaned back, his left leg straight and in a brace, and tried to get comfortable.
He smiled and told a gathered group of reporters not to mind his posture. Roberson’s left knee remains mostly immobile, the result of the torn patellar tendon he suffered on Jan. 27, ending his season.
He doesn’t walk or sit naturally. He’s limited in how much he can bend his knee. It’s a slow process, and though he’s past what he called “the pain stages,” Roberson still is a long way from basketball activity.
And that’s not the hardest part.
“It’s definitely the mental part,” Roberson said Wednesday, in his first public comments since he was injured in a win against the Pistons. “Staying positive. Just tell yourself, ‘Day by day, get through it.’ And just grind it out.”
The grind will take time.
Roberson does “slow bends” of the knee, he said. He walks with his leg straight. He does quad contractions to “keep it alive,” to keep blood circulating and avoid clots. And he tries to find ways to pass the time.
When he can, he likes to do that at the practice facility.
Roberson sits in on film sessions. He offers defensive pointers to Josh Huestis and Terrance Ferguson and newly acquired Corey Brewer, the Thunder players attempting to replace him in the rotation. He watches practice.
“I’m doing everything I can to stay involved,” Roberson said. “Being around the guys just makes me feel not alone, because a lot of time, I’m alone, four walls, by myself, doing rehab with someone one-on-one.”
Still, there’s a limit to his time with the team. He can attend a gameday shootaround, spend some time in the locker room.
“But then the game’s going on, he’s not even out there, because he can’t sit on the bench,” Thunder coach Billy Donovan said.
“You pick up and you go on a road trip, and he’s by himself. I think those are the hard parts.”
Roberson calls this “the slow grind,” and he’s trying not to go through it alone.
When he goes home, he regularly has the company of his brother Anthony, a senior at Central Oklahoma. Anthony Roberson injured the meniscus in his left knee just days before his older brother was injured leaping for an alley-oop in Detroit.
Anthony “comes over a lot,” Roberson said. The two have separate rehabs — Anthony at UCO, Andre with the Thunder — but once they’re more mobile, the plan is to work out together.
“We’re firm believers in, everything happens for a reason,” Roberson said. “And later in life, we’ll find out why. But we’re just sticking through it together. It’s kinda like my rehab partner. We’re kinda battling each other. Who can heal faster?”
Soon, Roberson said, he’ll be free to travel with the Thunder. That will help him feel connected.
But he won’t be on the court anytime soon. His absence there has had a dramatic effect.
The day Roberson got hurt, the Thunder had the NBA’s sixth-ranked defense, allowing 103.6 points per 100 possessions. In 17 games since, Oklahoma City is giving up 109.2. That ranks 21st in the league over that span and would be 27th were it a season-long number.
Since Roberson was injured, OKC’s opponents are shooting 39.8 percent from 3-point range and committing 14.9 turnovers per game. Prior to his injury, they shot 35.8 percent from long range and turned the ball over 16.1 times per game.
That defensive dropoff hasn’t served as any sort of validation for Roberson, whose offense was much-maligned prior to his injury.
He said he’s taken no vindication from fans coming to understand his value, saying he doesn’t “buy into all that noise.”
Instead, he’s focused on the physical — and considerable mental — hurdles ahead.
“Just that instantaneous switch over from being around the guys, being around a whole bunch of people to nothing is definitely different,” Roberson said. “But it’s challenging. And that’s what I’m all about: accepting and taking on challenges and getting better with it.”