Olympics Take Toll on 6 Players

The snake-bit U.S. Olympic basketball team is still down on its luck long after the Games are over. Six of the 12 members have missed time this season because of injury or illness.

The most serious of these was Danny Manning of the Clippers. The No. 1 pick in the NBA draft will be out of the lineup for at least a year with a career-threatening knee injury.

Also missing time this season have been North Carolina’s J.R. Reid with a foot fracture; Jeff Grayer of the Milwaukee Bucks with knee problems; Charles Smith of the Clippers with two knee injuries; Hersey Hawkins of the Philadelphia 76ers with knee problems and Phoenix forward Dan Majerle with mononucleosis.

It has been a long, disappointing haul for the Olympians. They went right from the regular season to Olympic tryouts and practice, to the Games and then back into the current regular season. Added to the insult of bringing home the bronze instead of the expected gold is the injury of not having had a meaningful break from basketball since October of 1987.

“There’s a fatigue problem, I think,” said Grayer of the Milwaukee Bucks, a guard on the Olympic team who has played just 11 games this season because of several injuries.

“When you go straight from your collegiate career and then start training for the Olympics and then from there into professional ball, you get tired. It’s a lot of wear and tear on your body.”

Not everyone thinks the later-than-usual Olympics--it ended Oct. 2--is the cause of the injury rash.

“A lot of rookies get hurt and I don’t think you can attribute that to playing too much or too little,” Manning said after his injury. “It’s just one of those things.”

A review of the top 16 picks of the past five drafts shows that 20 players--an average of four per year--suffered an injury serious enough to keep them out of the lineup for more than 10 games.

In 1984, four Olympians--Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins, Alvin Robertson and Leon Wood--entered the league after winning the gold medal that summer. Jordan was the league’s top rookie, and none of them suffered a serious injury.

But the 1984 Summer Games were held in July, much earlier than the 1988 games. The 1984 team had a much longer break between medal ceremonies and training camp. Olympic coach John Thompson believes that is a factor to the high percentage of injured Olympians.

“Because the Olympics were so late the kids were going from prime competition to prime competition,” the Georgetown coach said. “It (the injuries) may have to do with a lack of time for recovery.”

Charles Smith, Manning’s teammate on both the Olympic team and the Clippers, agrees with his Olympic mentor.

“It’s not so much that we had to play in the Olympics themselves, it’s that we’ve been playing a long time without a stop,” said Smith, who has injured the same knee twice this season, missing 11 games. “The long practice sessions and all the traveling we did before the Olympics have taken a toll.”

The first Olympian to go down was Hersey Hawkins, who missed the semifinal loss against the Soviets and the first week of training camp with a strained knee.

“Possibly we could be tired,” said Hawkins, now a guard for the Philadelphia 76ers. “I think that most of the things that happened were freak accidents.”

“I feel good at this point,” said Hawkins, who has not missed any regular season games.

“I don’t feel tired. Maybe when I get to 50 or 60 games it will catch up with me. There are days I may come to practice and I don’t feel like playing. I have to fight through it.”

While Manning and company have spent part of the season on the injured list, two other Olympians--Golden State’s Mitch Richmond and San Antonio’s Willie Anderson--are battling for top rookie honors.

“His (Richmond’s) late signing turned out to be a blessing in disguise,” said Golden State assistant coach Garry St. Jean several months ago. “When he arrived in camp, you could see he was refreshed.”

Ligament and cartilage damage to his left knee has forced Grayer to the Bucks’ injured list for the third time this season. But Grayer missed training camp and the first six games of the season with chicken pox, while another Olympian, Phoenix forward Dan Majerle, contracted mononucleosis.

Majerle may miss the rest of the season with an enlarged spleen and other complications resulting from mono.

Bucks medical adviser David Haskell said Majerle’s condition might be linked to fatigue, although there’s no evidence.

“It’s just a set of circumstances that creates a question,” Haskell said.

“I think the constant wear and tear on the body is showing,” Grayer said. When I first started here, I didn’t feel fatigued. I wasn’t tired at all. I felt like I was in the best shape of my life. Then all of a sudden, everything hit.”

“I’m still having physical problems,” Smith said. “The two-a-days didn’t hurt us at the time of the Olympics, but they’re hurting me now. I’ve lost 10 pounds since the beginning of the season, and it seems like I’m always getting sick.”

The grind, says Hawkins, should come as a surprise to no one.

“All of us knew what we were getting into,” he said.