Sam Presti offers 5 key insights for OKC Thunder 2019-20 campaign
Andre Roberson status:
Regarding the General Manager’s response to questions about the status of Andre Roberson, it was clear the team will take a cautious approach to his return and manage his minutes. Pulling specific excerpts from Presti’s response doesn’t give definitives. He’ll be on the court for training camp, but that could be in a limited setting. Many injured players will participate in shooting drills for example but it doesn’t mean they’ll wage in direct contact drills.
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A more optimistic response was Presti stating they hope ARob will get in some time in the preseason. Still, it’s clear how cautious the team intends to be in handling Roberson and his minutes this year. Specifically, they expect to manage his minutes throughout the process to slowly work him back into the rotation. At 22:10 of the video Presti makes states:
"Dre will be on the floor for training camp… We’ll obviously manage him closely because he hasn’t played a lot of competitive basketball in a while, and we have to be really supportive as he goes through that return-to-play process… But we’re hopeful that he’ll be seeing some preseason action as he gets closer…Hopefully, we can get him back out there doing what he does, but it’s not going to be an immediate thing. It’s just going to be small steps hopefully."
Dissecting the response leaves more questions than answers such as definitively stating Roberson is ready to go. This then leads into pondering if Roberson will start or come off the bench to ease him back into playing at a competitive level.
Roberson is entering the final season of his contract and if he resembles anything close to the player he was prior to his patellar tendon injury he’ll be among the very best defenders in the league.