NBAWeird But True

An NBA Player Turns To Shaolin Monks To Heal His Injured Knee

One thing we know about athletes: they will go to great lengths to keep themselves in peak playing condition, or as close to it as possible. Bartolo Colon and Peyton Manning tried stem cell therapy, with mixed results (the fact that Manning hasn’t played this season tells you how it worked for him). Kobe Bryant got knee therapy from the future. Novak Djokovic hangs out in a pod from space. And the Suns’ Mickael Pietrus, should he actually have any basketball to play anytime soon, will (hopefully) be up to the task, thanks to some interesting measures he took to repair his knee:

Pietrus traveled to the Shaolin Temple in central China’s Henan Province, where he tried “several traditional Chinese medicine therapies, including acupuncture, massage and some unique remedies administered by Shaolin monks,” the Chinese site What’s In Xiamen reported.

Supposedly, Pietrus’ knee is feeling better, so the monks’ methods couldn’t have hurt. We’re curious as to what those “unique remedies” were, though. Acupuncture and massage? You hear about those all the time. “Unique remedies”? That has us intrigued. Was it spiritual in nature? Was it so futuristic it would make stem cell therapy look like using leeches? Did they use leeches? Inquiring minds want to know. Apparently Shaq’s gone to the same place for treatment – maybe we can get it out of him.

AP photo, via

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