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On the Mend: Wallace, recovering from painful injury, hopes to return soon after All-Star break
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Gerald Wallace of the Bobcats was averaging 16.4 points per game before suffering a broken rib and a collapsed lung.
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Published: February 7, 2009
CHARLOTTE -- It hurts to even think about a collapsed lung.
Inhale, exhale … cringe.
So the notion that Gerald Wallace could talk about his latest injury and laugh about it without wincing is a testament to his pain threshold.
But there Wallace was last night at Time Warner Cable Arena, laughing and telling stories about the broken rib and collapsed left lung he suffered in the Charlotte Bobcats' win over the Los Angeles Lakers last week.
Doctors wouldn't allow Wallace to fly back from Los Angeles because of the risks involved with air pressure at 32,000 feet, so instead he got a 2,400-mile cross-country ride in a chartered bus. It started on Tuesday morning and ended about 42 hours later when he arrived in Charlotte on Thursday.
Didn't faze him at all.
"The bus had TV, so basically it was like sitting on your couch while your couch was moving up and down the highway," he said, chuckling at his own one-liner.
Wallace plans to take a vacation in a similar tour bus after the Bobcats' season ends. Seriously.
"I don't know why you guys are thinking it was a horrible trip," he told reporters. "It was actually a great trip. All my family was with me. We had a satellite TV, a bed in the back, a bathroom. We had snack and drinks. So we basically laid in the bed and watched cartoons half the day and movies the rest of the day."
This isn't a laughing matter, though, of course.
Wallace, the Bobcats' leading scorer and most versatile forward, is fortunate that the injury wasn't even more crippling. He was about to dunk after beating his defender in the lane when the Lakers' Andrew Bynum came over to apply a hard foul. In the process, Bynum wound up elbowing Wallace square in the left ribs.
Wallace crashed to the floor, gasping in pain.
Doctors later determined that the broken rib punctured the lung, then popped back into place.
"I think that one hit the right spot," he said. "I knew immediately, right after the contact, that something wasn't right. I think Ray (Felton) or somebody was the first person who came over and they were saying, ‘Come on, get up,' and I said, ‘I can't. My ribs are broke.'
"I didn't know anything about the lung issue, I just knew something was wrong with my ribs. Once they started talking about my lung issue, it was kind of frightening. They said my lung totally collapsed and was halfway full of air, and that wasn't supposed to be there. I've never been cut on, and they said they would have to cut on me, and that kind of freaked me out. That was a first for me. But fortunately, we had a great doctor out there and everything worked out well."
Now, the lung capacity is back to 100-percent capacity and the rehabilitation process is about to begin in earnest. Wallace has been cleared to start working out on his own, and he hopes to return to the lineup after next week's All-Star break.
"It was pretty painful," he said. "It's actually still painful at times now. My hardest time now is going to sleep and waking up in the morning. Once I get up in the morning and get into my daily routine and start moving, then my breathing kind of eases up. I can breathe kind of easily. But the pain is still there and I can still feel it every time I take a breath."
Meanwhile, the Bobcats aren't doing very well trying to make do without Wallace, who was averaging 16.4 points and 7.4 rebounds in 41 games.
They lost their fourth straight since Wallace's injury last night, letting a 17-point lead disappear in a 102-97 loss to Atlanta. That dropped them to 19-30 and no better than 12th in the Eastern Conference.
Before Wallace's injury, the Bobcats had been getting progressively better since the acquisition of Boris Diaw and Raja Bell in a trade with Phoenix.
"Gerald was probably playing his best basketball prior to getting hurt," Coach Larry Brown said. "I don't look at numbers, but I think you've got to be impressed with 17 a game and eight rebounds. His assists are way up, and defensively he's made a lot of progress. He's the blueprint of a player that I value. He would be at the top of that list, because he is competitive and he is a great athlete."
Wallace is also the Bobcats' most-energetic player.
"It's been frustrating because some of the games (since the injury), it's seemed like we lacked energy," he said. "That's something I pride myself on, being that guy for the team that provides the energy. The games I watched on TV after I got hurt, the energy just wasn't there. So hopefully I'll be back after the All-Star break."
■ John Delong can be reached at jdelong@wsjournal.com.
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