Audio: Pritchard discusses Roy's surgery

Kevin Pritchard, a very relieved general manager, discussed Brandon Roy's successful meniscectomy today with the media at the practice facility. According to Pritchard, Roy was in good spirits after the surgery. A full recovery is expected. Give it a listen.



Download the audio (674 KB).

UPDATE: Here's the transcript for those of you who dislike audio for one reason or another.

Pritchard: Today Brandon came out of surgery and obviously there were a lot of things that could have happened. We know from being in this position before that you go in with a great attitude but you prepare for a lot of things. Brandon just had a partial meniscusectomy. Should be out four to eight weeks. We’re very relieved today and Brandon is in a great mood. He’s heading back to Seattle and he’ll be back here on Monday to start his physical therapy.

I think we all kind of have a collective sigh of relief today because with these knee injuries there’s a lot that can happen. You’re talking about the career of a young man who has put his face on this organization and who we care deeply about. We are going to take our time in bringing him back. We will not rush. We’ll do what we did with Oden. But today is a good day. We found out about it. Dr. Roberts did a great job and we’re in a position now that he can be ready by close to the regular season.

Q: When were you aware that he was going to require surgery?

Pritchard: Yesterday.

Q: Did Dr. Roberts say how long the procedure was?

Pritchard: You know, I don’t want to get into all that because I’m not a doctor, but it was a very short surgery. Very, very clean. Very successful. Thank goodness.

Q: Were you able to talk to Brandon afterwards and is he in good spirits?

Pritchard: Absolutely. It’s fun because as soon as he got out of the procedure the first thing he asked was, “How long was I in there?” because he knows if he’s in there a long time, it could be other things. But since he was up in there such a short amount of time he knew it was good news.

He’s in great spirits. Matter fact, he’s on whatever he was on so he’s feeling pretty good. As was I.

Q: What’s the schedule for him now? How soon can he start working on that knee?

Pritchard: You know, it’s hard when you get down to actual weeks because you don’t know how a guy is going to react to physical therapy and to the medicine. But it’s four to eight weeks. I want to be very conservative in that. You guys know how I am: we always put that athlete and the person ahead of anything else. So we’re going to take this and do it right.

Q: Have you had a chance to talk to Nate? Does he know and what’s his reaction, if any?

Pritchard: He does know. Obviously we’re all walking on egg shells around here. It was a nervous time. Again, we’re all in that collective sigh of relief, and it sounds like the whole town is. But I can tell you think: I didn’t sleep a whole lot last night and I feel very, very good about where we are today. We’re in a great position to have him ready by the regular season.

Q: How long did you know about this before we found out. In other words, how many other sleepless night’s did you have before last night?

Pritchard: 48 hours, so this came quick. Dr. Roberts looks at it. You know, Dr. Roberts has had so much success that we trust his evaluation. He got a second opinion. I don’t want to go into all that. I’ll I want to talk about is that it was very success. Very successful. This could have been a lot of things and just a partial meniscusectomy this size, that’s something that we can get over very quickly.

Q: And again, it wasn’t a result of a particular injury or something? Maybe something that he had been dealing with? Just wear and tear, that type of thing?

Pritchard: Yeah, it is a wear and tear. What’s really strange is just all these injuries, they’re not high-impact things that guys come down on a knee wrong. It’s where they say, “You know, I’m kind of sore.” And so we want to take a look at it. Came down and got an MRI then we did the procedure.

Q: A different feeling than it was about a year ago this time.

Pritchard: Yeah. You know, you feel for these guys. These guys are family. They’re our guys. I saw his face yesterday and how he felt and we were very thankful the way it came out.

Q: What about some of the players, Greg in particular? He was just talking a couple of days ago about his connection with Brandon and aspiring to be like Brandon. What was his reaction when he heard about this?

Pritchard: Greg and I talked about it yesterday and said, you know, it could be a lot of things. I remember looking at Greg’s face going, geez, I don’t want that on anybody, especially Brandon because he looks up to him. But the good thing is he told me just know he’s going to go text Brandon and call Brandon. The one thing we’ve got is good guys on this team and they care about each other, which is hopefully the start of something special.

Q: Kevin there are so many things that you can worry about with the team, so many players. How do you get through each week without worrying too much?

Pritchard: Oh man. You know I’m a worrier at heart. You want this team to be successful and there are some many things out of your control. But I feel like we’ve got a great team. I think we’ve got great doctors. A great organization; this organization has turned around so much and we believe in each other and we communicate and we trust. We’re going to get through hard times, and today could have been a hard time and it’s not. We’re going to get through this.

Q: Did you say you had a chance to talk to Nate or was it an email?

Pritchard: I emailed Nate, and last night I talked to Nate.

Q: Did you get a sense of what kind of time he’s having over there? He’s got to be enjoying it.

Pritchard: He beat Greece today, so I’m sure he’s doing pretty good. But if you were to ask him would you rather beat Greece or have Brandon healthy, I’d like to hear that answer, you know? But he’s doing good.