The Thunder have added many new additions to the team this season. If you haven’t kept up with basketball this summer, the new roster may look unrecognizable. One of the later additions to the roster was Ronnie Price. He signed a two-year, $4.9 million contract on August 14th.
Price played college ball for one year at Nicholls State, and his last three years of eligibility at Utah Valley. During his senior year, he averaged 24.3 points per game. He was awarded the Division 1 Independent Player of the Year. Even with those accolades, it was not enough for him to get drafted.
After going undrafted in 2005, Price worked out for the Utah Jazz and for the Detroit Pistons. He ended up signing a two-year contract with the Sacramento Kings which made him the first player to make it to the NBA from Utah Valley.
The veteran point guard has played for many different teams throughout his eleven year career, included six teams in the last six years. Even though he has been passed around from team to team recently, there was a bit of excitement for his arrival in Oklahoma City.
He was brought to Oklahoma City with the intentions of being a solid role player, and adding more veteran leadership to the team. Last year, he averaged 5.3 points and 2.4 assists per game. With the injury to Cameron Payne, Price’s minutes are bound to increase. His experience in this league will make him a valuable back up for Russell Westbrook.
During the fourth quarter of the Thunder’s Monday night pre-season game, against the Dallas Mavericks, Price left the game with concussion like symptoms and was taken back to the locker room with team doctors and did not return. He is set to undergo a baseline concussion test here in Oklahoma City. He can not return to play until he passes the NBA’s concussion protocol.
Here is the NBA’s return to participation protocol:
- The return to participation protocol involves several steps of increasing exertion — from a stationary bike, to jogging, to agility work, to non-contact team drills.
- With each step, a player must be symptom free to move to the next step. If a player is not symptom free after a step, he stops until he is symptom free and begins again at the previous step of the protocol (i.e., the last step he passed without any symptoms).
- While the final return-to participation decision is to be made by the player’s team physician, the team physician must discuss the return-to-participation process and decision with Dr. Jeffrey Kutcher, the Director of the NBA’s Concussion Program, prior to the player being cleared for full participation in NBA Basketball
- It’s important to note that there is no timeframe to complete the protocol. Each injury and player is different and recovery time can vary in each case.
Article written by Craig Hofeld. Follow @TheThunderGuys on Twitter.