Scalabrine: ‘I don’t remember’

By Gary Dzen

January 28, 2009

2 minutes to read

A day after suffering his second concussion in three days, Celtics forward Brian Scalabrine answered questions about his health this evening in the team’slocker room.

Scalabrine originally suffered a concussion against Dallas Sunday and missed practice Monday. He suffered another concussion when he bumped into Patrick O’Bryant while trying to get a rebound yesterday and was taken to New England Baptist Hospital.

“I don’t remember what happened,” said Scalabrine of yesterday’s concussion. “The hit from the Dallas game hurt a lot. This time it didn’t hurt. My ankle felt good. My legs felt good. All of the pain from the NBA was gone.”

Scalabrine said he didn’t know how long he’d be out, but he said it would be at least 7 to 10 days before he started working out again.”

“I’ll probably have to go back and earn [that playing time],” he said. “And that’s OK.”

Concussions are just starting to come to light as a serious issue in the sport of football, with former Patriots player Ted Johnson, who developed severe depression issues following several concussions during his playing days, a prime example. Just yesterday, the Globe ran a story about an 18-year-old showing signs of an incurable debilitating disease caused by the kind of repetitive head trauma he experienced on the field.

“I would assume football are light years ahead of us on this whole thing,” said Rivers. “They have a whole week to recover. It was only two days for Scal, if you think about it, so in some ways it’s even more severe.”

Rivers said he really didn’t know much about handling concussions, despite having suffered one himself during his playing days.

“It’s really up to Eddie [Lacerte], the trainer,” said Rivers. “I just don’t know enough about it, honestly. Eddie and I talked about it before. We were probably 50-50 about whether or not Scal should go, and I guess when you get to that point you probably should say no. Players are so competitive now. Scal’s getting minutes, you know, and the last thing he wants to do is go sit down and give the coach a reason to play someone else.

“I dont know how you know the difference [between a severe concussion or not]. We can’t overreact. Hell, do we learn about collapsed lungs now (following an incident in last night’s Lakers game). I’d rather have the trainers learn about it and tell the coaches. I think that’s safer.”

Still, despite his admitted lack of knowledge on the subject (Rivers’ favorite line is “Doc is just a nickname”), Rivers said he would never force a player into the game if he thought that player had a head injury.

“That’s something I think we may be ahead of [football] on,” said Rivers. “We tend to check with the trainer. Eddie comes to my office every morning. We have a list of everybody’s name and there is a check or a minus next to it. If there is a check you play, and if there is a minus you don’t. And I don’t ever cross…if it says minus, you don’t practice.”