Brandon Roy Returns To Court In Seattle Pro-Am (video)

SEATTLE -- On Saturday, Brandon Roy did something that used to be routine: He played a basketball game. Roy's performance at the Jamal Crawford Pro-Am League in Seattle was his first public appearance on the court since his last game for the Blazers some 15 months ago. In the interim, Roy has retired due to deteriorating condition of his knees, undergone treatment, started a comeback and agreed to sign with the Minnesota Timberwolves to start the next chapter of his career.

When close friend Will Conroy first hinted and later confirmed on Twitter last week that Roy would play, it created a buzz in the Seattle basketball community, but also some skepticism. Roy pulled out of a pair of charity games at the last minute during the summer of 2011, and he's yet to officially put pen to paper on his new contract with the Timberwolves. Yet Roy arrived about 20 minutes before gametime and changed into his red jersey. The teams in Crawford's team are all named after NBA teams, so for one day, Roy--along with Conroy and another former Husky, Mike Jensen--was a member of the Bulls. They squared off against a Kings team featuring Isaiah Thomas and former Blazer Martell Webster.

After scoring the first bucket of the game on a pull-up jumper going to his left, Roy was quiet offensively the rest of the first quarter. This being a pro-am setting that features a gap in talent between NBA stars and local preps that played at the community college level, it was difficult to tell how much Roy was trying to push things. He opened the game using his occasional drives to set up teammates rather than score at the rim.

By halftime, Roy had contributed about nine points and six rebounds in a close game. After the break, Roy started to remind us all of how he once could--and maybe still can--cook. He started getting to the basket on a regular basis, showing off the hesitation moves and body control that made him one of the NBA's top shooting guards. The Roy skills are still all there; the question is whether he still has the athleticism and explosion to harness them. In that regard, I would say Roy looked somewhat better than he did during the second half of the 2010-11 season, when he struggled for the Blazers.

Again, the setting makes it difficult to offer definitive conclusions. I would have liked to see more of Roy and Webster matched up against one another to get a sense for a matchup Roy might actually see in the NBA. This being the summer, defense is optional, and both teams poured in better than 110 points as Roy's Bulls pulled away with a 14-1 run midway through the fourth quarter. I'd estimate Roy probably finished with somewhere around 25 points, 10 boards and five[..]ists; Thomas might have scored 35 points.

As limited as Saturday may have been from a scouting perspective, it was great to see Roy on the court again. His apparent early retirement was painful both because of the joy the game brought him and the joy his game brought all of us. On Saturday, we saw just a little bit of it again.

Source: Recap: Brandon Roy Returns To Court In Seattle Pro-Am - Blazer's Edge

Video:

damn got me feelin like i could ball wit them [pic]

Not to take anything away from this but had I not known who he was I would have thought he was just another guy on the court[pic]

No explosiveness. Probably not going hard either, so I don't care.

The most garbage basketball video (as a whole) I've seen all summer...just keeping it 100

But just seeing B Roy hooping gets a salute [pic]

1 thing I did notice was there was no knee brace...if he's that confident in the knee Minny might have gotten something for the cheap.

video looked like scrub city out there

so we just gonna act like that number 5 dude on the red team wasn't missing everything

[pic] everytime this dude drives I feel like he is gonna collapse

lost 3...4...5 steps

he wasnt wearing knee braces before he retired either...

Yea he was in the Dallas series and at the end of the regular season
I'm not judging this is actually his first playing in a somewhat organize setting

I need to see him play in a real game before I make an[..]essment.

i dont see any braces [pic]

It's was just that game but I remember him during the season wearing a knee brace
I guess it was in the beginning of the season

100ms stays on it i swear..

but I wish nothing but the best of luck to Roy was and still is one of my favorites..[pic]

how about a full season of this[pic]

He look slow as hell

i agree man he aint gonna be the same why is he doing this? wow from 2 mins of video i see roy slow doesnt have the cuts or change of direction he gets stop quik and gives up the ball but yea hes waltzing out there[pic]