Joe Johnson Is His Own Boss

Check out this exchange (starting at the 18:17 mark) of Episode No. 37 of the Hang Time Podcast:

Lang Whitaker: Mike, how did Joe [Johnson] look to you this weekend? You know, everyone thought he was going to be out six weeks and he was out three. How did he look?

Michael Cunningham: That was surprising. And the thing is, if you look at how the whole thing went down, he didn't even tell them about this elbow thing until it got so bad that he needed surgery, basically.

He's the kind of guy, Sekou knows it, when he's hurt or he's hurting, he's not really going to talk about it not even to the media, to the team. He doesn't tell anybody, he just keeps playing and goes about his business. To me that's not the kind of guy you really want to trust to come back so soon from a surgery. So, if Joe tell me he's ready to play, I'm like, "Alright, let's wait another week."

But he came back, he didn't look so good his first game and yesterday in New Jersey, he started off pretty good, he hit some shots but he missed his last eight shots and didn't look that comfortable out there, didn't really seem to be back in the flow. It's going to take him some time.