When Is the Right Time to Comeback?

Rockefeller Center

Once upon a time... ...part of my daily day job duties is visiting Rockefeller Center's Post Office to ship-out packages to clients. It may be nothing to some but that area is far-beyond "holy" for tourists. They treat the Golden Rockefeller Center & its flags along w/ its "world-famous" Christmas Tree and let's not forget, its skating rink like it's the Jewel of the Nile City. 

Circa 1941

Me?

I'm the master of navigating through the 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12-13 different entrance points to Rockefeller Center...well, the thirteen that I know of and routinely take.

Just recently, I was motoring-on-by w/ my women's carry-on bag filled w/ packages of Broadway costume jewelry and I heard two girls whisper-out-loud, 'That's KongList!' while the other rebutted, 'No, I don't think he has hair!' — Wow, it was a flattering and funny gesture but I just then realized, "Have I really been away from the Promoting Game for that long?"

Is there light at the end of the tunnel on the road to retirement?

With that being said, I have taken a couple of months "off" from the Nightlife Industry...I didn't disappear completely though...I've been working on side-projects, potential "start-ups" (which is the rave for today's young entrepreneurs), participated in several webcasts, signed-up for a bunch of webinar classes, took a couple of tutorial programs like 'How to Type Correctly' & 'How to Do the Live Long and Prosper Star Trek Symbol' (with some success), and help coordinate numerous design work w/ an exciting "new" design team from Los Angeles, California — I mean, what is 8 weeks when you've been promoting for 8 years straight without a "real" break, right? Right.

[Interlude]

Aside from dissecting how teams are matching-up against each other, it seems like the talk of the 2013 NBA Playoffs has been about the 2010 MVP of the Chicago Bulls — Derrick Rose. Here are some recent headlines making waves:

Should Derrick Rose Return? — ESPN.com

Derrick Rose Has to Come Back (Today) — USA Today

It seems like everyone and their mother media seems to have their own opinion these days but simply put — D-Rose still isn't ready yet. In backtracking, Derrick Rose endured an injury-plagued season in 2011-2012 that included — in chronological order: an elbow injury, sprained left big toe, severe back spasms, groin strain, sprained right ankle, right foot, etc. 

Now don't get me wrong, every professional athlete endures and suffers injuries during the season –it's inevitable, but the list of Rose's injuries is seemingly long, particularly for a young and otherwise healthy professional athlete coming-off an MVP season.

D-Rose has been labeled as a violent dunker

Rose even told reporters at the time, "For someone to not miss more than seven, 10 games in a year (my first three seasons), to miss 20 something, 30 something games, it hurts, man." 

[Note: He missed nearly 40 percent of the regular-season]

Okay, getting back to the injury-riddled year — he suffered a severe ankle injury towards season's end that when looked back upon — probably came back too early from; which might have been the culprit for suffering his season-ending torn ACL in Game 1 of the NBA Playoffs against the 76ers. 

Although an ankle & ACL isn't linked to each other physically, your body tends to shift and apply more weight/exert more force onto a body part to make-up for a failing one. [Think about when you have a toothache on one side of your mouth, you tend to start eating on the opposite side.]

With that being said, ask Grant Hill or Brandon Roy or Tracy McGrady if they came-back too soon from injury and didn't take the right amount of time to comeback at full-strength...simply ask them or yourselves, would comeback and risk another debilitating season-ending or worse; career-ending injury to appease fans & support your team or would you choose not to take that risk and comeback completely healthy –at full-strength, in order to prolong your career (potential "All-Star/Superstar" careers -in their cases).

Easier said than done.

Grant Hill’s Advice for Derrick Rose’s Critics — Bloomberg.com

The bottom line is this, I feel as if it is ultimately the person's choice to decide when they're ready to come back — whether it be sports, workforce, dating, etc. — only he/she knows when they are finally ready. 

In life, many people return back to certain perople or things when they are clearly not ready to make that commitment. And if that person decides to return per-maturely for whatever reason it is, be prepared to face backlash and/or suffer the consequences when their performance isn't up-to-par. 

I mean even if Rose decided to make his comeback now and played at only 75-80%, he'll probably still be better than 90% of any other NBA players at his position. Regardless, he'll be cheating himself if that is the case.

To conclude, a person whose standards is of the "highest-level" would not be satisfied if they came back "half-ass"...trust me on that.