Boston Celtics centre Chris Wilcox diagnosed with an heart ailment; likely to miss season – NBA Update
Aortic aneurysm, a heart condition in which the aorta swell to greater than 1.5 times of the normal, has claimed its second victim in NBA this season. And just like before, the franchise which has suffered is Boston Celtics.
Celtics head coach Doc Rivers revealed on Sunday that centre Chris Wilcox, who has been filling for the injured Jermaine O’ Neal this season, is suffering from a heart ailment similar to what Celtics forward Jeff Green had been
diagnosed with earlier this season.
"There's not much I can say. They have a bunch of tests to run and it's what it is," Rivers said before the game with the Los Angeles Lakers. "Obviously team wise, it's a h**l of a blow for us.
"It's not a great place. It's scary, it really is. You think about it, the chances of having one of these in a year, it's pretty minute. The chance of having two is like impossible. There's a chance that might happen. We just have
to wait and see.”
Green, the young forward who came into the Celtics lineup only last season, was ruled out for the entire season after undergoing a surgery in January and by the looks of it, it seems that Wilcox will be following the same route.
His exit at this stage leaves the already short-handed C’s in a rather precarious position and puts more work load on Kevin Garnett, the 36 year old power forward. He, along with inexperienced rookie For Greg Stiemsma, is now the
only big the C’s have and size in the paint will surely become a problem. They can trade for the big before the March 15 deadline but the problem is that they do not have enough assets to present in exchange.
With this latest development, Garnett automatically gets out of the trade equation and if anybody among Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce is given up, the Celts may struggle to hold together an already shaky offense.
Doc Rivers seems to understand the quagmire and indicated that the franchise might be forced to search for option in the NBA D-League.
"Usually there's not a lot of bigs floating around the D-League, but we're going to look everywhere," Rivers said. "Wherever we can."
Tags: