After the surprising announcement that he wouldn’t be able to compete at this summer’s EuroBasket due to a knee problem, Mike Pietrus finally took the time to explain what when on.
“I was still in Orlando, back in December, when I first started to feel some pain in my knee. And it was during a game against Toronto, last March, when I was with Phoenix that it went worst. I felt something pop in my knee. It swelled and it hurt”, he told Yann Ohnona of the French magazine l’Equipe.
“At some point, I couldn’t even walk. We ran some tests and the doctors didn’t find anything. They just told me that getting some rest should be enough.”
Pietrus also explained why he didn’t chose to seek a second opinion after the season.
“People act like I’m a body specialist, but I’m not. I listen to what the doctors tell me.”
Then he talked about the way the whole thing has been revealed (no statement from him, a very vague press release from the French Federation talking about a “medical problem”, the way his agent finally gave some information on the subject…), which has created quite a controversy in France, leading to numerous speculations about the reasons why he couldn’t join Team France.
“The Federation had no other choice but to do things this way. The way everything went down was ok with me. It was a question of medical secrecy. If they had revealed more I could’ve sued them if I wanted to and I was sure to win.
I told them that I would explain the situation later on, when I would be more at peace with it (because I was very upset). By the way, I had no clue that I was such a big star and that the media would make such a huge deal of this. Performance enhancing drugs? Marijuana? Mike Pietrus isn’t a steroid guy. He’s a health guy. I don’t do any drugs.”
By Julien Deschuyteneer
