McKie Ready for Conditioning

On Thursday, June 20, Aaron McKie stopped by the Sixers practice facility, PCOM, and spoke to the media regarding his recent surgery and his eagerness to begin conditioning.

Q: When did you find out surgery would be needed?
McKie: I got back in the gym this summer and started playing basketball again, and it just wasn't feeling right. I was telling the doctor I was doing rehab on and trying to strengthen it, and it just didn't get better. So we took some x-rays, and they looked at them, and took them down to the doctor that Speedy went to have his surgery. He saw something in there, and I saw a few other doctors, and they thought the procedure needed to be done. I'm glad we caught it early [instead of] the end of the summer, and it would have been the same situation as last year.

Q: Is it the same shoulder problem?
McKie: It's something different. It's something new. It's just an unfortunate situation, but I'm glad that we got it early, because they gave me options. My options were get it taken care of now, get yourself healthy and ready to play, or if you try to play through the season, possibly doing a lot of damage where you can't play basketball again. That was a no-brainer, so we went ahead and got it taken care of.

Q: When did you really notice it?
McKie: When I was in the gym, and younger guys were posting me up. This was like two weeks ago -- younger guys were posting me up, and I couldn't hold them off. I was like it must be because I'm out of shape or whatever, but it just wasn't right. I'll go home, and I'd be real sore.

It started to bother me towards the end of last year. Anytime you have surgery on something it's not going to be 100 percent like you want it to be. I think over time, doing the wear and tear, it's going to start to bother you at some point. But how we look at things -- we just try to go into rehab and strengthen it and make it stronger and make it better.

Q: What have you been cleared to do?
McKie: I think just some conditioning. I can't do upper-body stuff. No shooting or lifting with my upper body until like August. Other than that, I can get out and run and ride the bike -- which is good because that's what's important to me is my conditioning and being in shape. That's almost 50-60 percent of the game.

Q: Did you come back too fast last year?
McKie: It might have been, but that's just my nature. If I can come back next week, and they're saying it's going to take me 3-4 months, then I'm going to try to do it next week. I'd rather be out there trying to help -- we all want to be 100 percent and do the best that we can do in our job, but you to understand, in this game, you're not going to always be 100 percent so you try to get what you can.

Q: Do you fear that next season will start the same as this one...with guys recovering?
McKie: We hope not, but if you look at it, it's sometimes not how you start but how you finish. Hopefully we'll have everybody healthy and ready to play and God forbid not have to worry about any injuries throughout the season.

Q: Did you consider other options?
McKie: This one was a no brainer. With the one last year, we wanted to take some time off and get a little rest. The season ended late. [We wanted to] take some time off, give it some rest and see if things get better. Once I got back in the gym and started playing, it didn't get any better. By that time, it was almost time to start the season, so we went on and had the surgery. If it was a situation where I was on a team that didn't make the playoffs, it wouldn't have been an issue. The season was a little extended, and we got the surgery done last year, and I just want to try to jump on things ahead of time so I can prepare myself for the beginning of the season.