For the first 15 games of the season, Shane Battier has been more clotheshorse than workhorse, receiving notoriety for that infamous red blazer style statement rather than his usual black-and-blue style of play.
Fans around the NBA have reacted warmly, calling him everything from a lost member of a marching band to a stadium usher who should be showing them to their seats instead of sitting on the Rockets’ bench.
But in the world of haute couture, styles change, and so it is that Beau Brummel is ready to become Joe the Basketball Player.
After watching from the sideline since the first day of training camp while nursing a deep bone bruise in his left ankle, Battier is hoping to make his 2008-09 season debut this week, maybe even tonight against Indiana.
“It feels pretty good. It feels better than it did a month and a half ago,” Battier said following Tuesday’s workout. “I wouldn’t say that I feel outstanding, but I feel good enough to finally dip my toe in the water.
“感觉挺好，比一个半月以前好。”巴蒂尔在结束了周二（北京时间周三）的训练后说，“我不会说自己已经生龙活虎了，但是终于足够上场去试试了。”
“Hopefully, I wake up in the morning and feel good. So much is predicated on how good I feel in the morning. If it feels pretty good in the shootaround, I’ll retire the red jacket for at least a night.”
Can’t rush a bone bruise
One of the ultimate competitors and blue-collar workers, Battier had never missed more than four games in any of his previous seven NBA seasons. So he found himself often climbing the walls with frustration from watching.
“Oh yes, every competitor is like that,” he said. “I’ve found that I’m not a very good NBA fan. I wanted to be out there.”
But the injury, which developed over the summer during rehab work following surgery on the left ankle to remove bone spurs, was not the kind that could be rushed. The bone bruise is deep in the joint where, in layman’s terms, the leg bone connects to the foot bone, and if it grows too large, the result can be the wearing away of cartilage in the joint and much more serious problems.
“It seems like I’ve been talking for so long about taking baby steps,” Battier said. “I know some people have probably gotten impatient and wanted to say, ‘Battier, suck it up and get out there.’ But it really has been an issue of monitoring how the joint reacts to stress, and the only way to do it is to work your way back in there really slowly. It’s not like a sprained ankle.
“It means I have to work smarter. I have to eliminate a lot of my extra work, and I’m a worker, so that’s one of the toughest things for me. I have to know when I need repetition and when I just need rhythm. And I need to know when I need my rest. That’s the balance that I’ll be juggling all year long.
“It feels pretty good. I was telling Chuck (Hayes) today, it feels like when you pick up a basketball after taking a month off in the summer. You just feel a little unaware of your body and how you move. So it will take a little while for me to be the player that I know I can be. At the same time, I know I can go out there and do some things to help our team. I don’t think I’ll be a detriment to our team.”
‘Figure it out on the fly’
Battier has watched his teammates fight through a difficult opening schedule to put up a 10-5 record and believes they can be even better when he rejoins a team that already has Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and newcomer Ron Artest in the starting lineup.
“I think we’re going to have some really good flexibility,” Battier said. “We can have some matchups down the stretch in some games where you could throw Ron and me on the floor at the same time with Tracy and you would have three guys who could switch every pick-and-roll. Each of us can guard a power forward on a possession. We haven’t gotten to the ins and outs of who’s going to start, who’s off the bench, who’s going to guard who. We’ll figure it out on the fly.”
What Battier does know is that Artest needs to stop holding back.
“That’s evident after the first 15 games,” Battier said. “I told him, ‘You’re passing up shots that you were brought here to take. You need to be Ron Artest and let everyone else figure out their roles around you.’
“I got mad because he used to just ‘Bogart’ you to the basket, and you had no choice but to foul him. He started one night to do that, then passed back out, and I’m yelling, ‘No, Ron! Shoot the ball! They have to foul you!’
“That’s the only way that we can be the team that we’re going to be — if everyone plays to their strengths. It’s up to the coaches to figure out how to utilize all the strengths. I just want to play.”
He’s had more than enough of being a spectator.
“There are things that I’ve learned about myself and things that I can see to do better that I couldn’t see before because I was in the middle of it all,” Battier said. “Hopefully, I come back from this and become a better player.
“And keep the red jacket in my closet.”
我在场下也学到了一些以前没有注意东西（以前是不识庐山真面目，只缘身在此山中），希望我能因此变成一个更好的球员，并让那套红西服一直呆在衣柜中。
