When Klay Thompson was inadvertently kneed in the head during Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals last Wednesday night, he crashed down hard on the court.
The Golden State Warriors' All-Star shooting guard passed the NBA's concussion protocol and was cleared to return to the game but didn't. He then felt dizzy well after the game, and, on Friday, was officially diagnosed as having sustained a concussion.
That sequence — and the nasty fall that Thompson's teammate and NBA MVP Stephen Curry took last Monday night (he suffered a head contusion) — has caused the league to investigate its current concussion policy.
According to the Associated Press, the NBA union has hired neurologists to take a closer look at the league's existing concussion guidelines to decide if changes are needed.
NBA union chief Michele Roberts told the AP that Thompson's fall and subsequent concussion was enough to trigger the investigation.
"That number is sufficient to make us all look at whether we want to risk a player's health for a game," she said. "To say it happens so rarely or doesn't happen frequently enough to change the rules is not enough. We're talking potentially about someone's life. I don't think we should play an odds game when comes to [a] player's life."
If that means that players feared of having sustained concussions don't re-enter games, so be it.
"It's not for them to decide," Roberts added. "They're not doctors."
In talking to Tech Times last week, Dr. Ben Wedro, an emergency physician at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wis. and writer for MDdirect.org, warned that the problem with the league's current protocol is that it doesn't account for the delayed symptoms that often accompany concussions. Thus, Wedro doesn't feel like a player being cleared to return to the same game of a possible concussion is a wise guideline by the league.
Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, director of the league's concussion program, didn't return calls from Tech Times but did acknowledge the challenge that delayed symptoms cause while speaking with the AP. Kutcher insisted, though, that the NBA's current concussion guidelines are thorough.
"We're not evaluating the patient, putting him back in the game and saying, 'See you in the clinic next week,"' Kutcher said. "We're evaluating them, and if the determination is to go back into the game, the athlete is observed, re-observed and re-tested to look for signs or symptoms."
We hear what he's saying, but to veer on the safe side, a good starting point for a change, would be to keep players suspected of having suffered a concussion out for at least that same game. It's the right thing to do.
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