Updates
Wed, Sep 30th 2009, 11:09
Back healthy, Heat's Jermaine O'Neal looking to return to form
Heat forward Jermaine O’Neal won’t be accompanied by his “best friend” when the team opens training camp today at AmericanAirlines Arena. Consider that a good thing.
It turns out O’Neal’s “best friend” is a portable ice machine. It was his companion for three years, because O’Neal’s injured left knee would swell so much and so often he needed a constant source of ice to treat the ailment. That shouldn’t be the case this season, his 14th.
“I’m 100 percent [healthy],” O’Neal said at Monday’s media day. “The knee isn’t giving me any problems.”
If that’s true, then it could be a comeback season for O’Neal, who will earn $23 million in the final year of his contract.
“If I had any summer to get back,” O’Neal said, “this was my summer.”
O’Neal, acquired in a midseason trade with Toronto in exchange for a package that included forward Shawn Marion, said his knee hurt so much he was “basically playing on one leg.”
To address that, O’Neal underwent two rigorous offseason workout programs — a seven-week session with the Heat’s trainers followed by an eight-week session with fitness guru Tim Grover, the Chicago-based expert who helped guard Dwyane Wade regain his health last summer.
“What he’s done this summer,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, “is akin to what Dwyane did last year.”
The hope is the 6-foot-11 O’Neal, who will be 31 when the Heat opens the regular season at New York on Oct. 28, comes close to recapturing the form that made him one of the most feared players in the Eastern Conference for almost a decade with Indiana.
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