Hornets get glimpse of old Roy Hibbert - for one night, anyway

Sometime around 10 Thursday morning Charlotte Hornets center Roy Hibbert will walk into Spectrum Center, head straight to the training room, and begin "the regimen."

It takes at least two hours to get his body – and particularly his right knee – ready to practice or play. There are more than 16,000 NBA minutes on this 30-year-old’s body and the past two seasons have not been kind.

"It’s so many other things, you wouldn’t understand," Hibbert said of the regimen. "It’s just exercises you have to do."

Hibbert doesn’t relish talking with the media. I don’t know exactly what happened at the end of his time with the Indiana Pacers, after he stopped being an All-Star, but he got skittish about interviews.

Wednesday, talking to media was non-negotiable. He had just scored a season-high 16 points, grabbing six rebounds and blocking two shots. He was central, if not essential, to the Hornets breaking a five-game losing streak by beating the Portland Trail Blazers 107-85.

The Hornets hadn’t held an opponent under 100 points in the previous eight games. Hibbert’s rim-protection, the primary reason the Hornets signed him to a one-season, $5 million contract, hasn’t shown up a lot since he aggravated his right-knee condition in the season-opener in Milwaukee.

Hornets associate head coach Patrick Ewing, like Hibbert a Georgetown grad, has mentored Hibbert throughout this season. Ewing said this was Hibbert’s best game in an up-and-down season.

"More down than up," Ewing acknowledged.

This was only the second time in the past 20 games that Hibbert has reached double-figure scoring. Not that the Hornets brought him to Charlotte primarily for his offense, but head coach Steve Clifford has said repeatedly Hibbert can help this team at both ends.

Of course, the prerequisite to that is a healthy right knee. And the prerequisite to a healthy right knee is the regimen.

‘I continue to trend in the right direction," Hibbert said.

"My legs are feeling good. The training staff and the strength coaches are working hard. When you have an injury like mine, with the knee, the quad atrophies. I lifted heavy all summer. It (stinks) that when you have an injury like that, your leg goes from having a quad this big (a wide distance between his hands) to this big (narrows his hands)."

It’s sad watching someone work so hard just to stay healthy enough to play impactfully in one out of every handful of games. I remember the contraption ex-Charlotte Bobcat Shaun Livingston would bring on the road, an ice machine that would rhythmically contract and expand around his once-wrecked knee.

Wednesday was a respite from all that for Hibbert. He not only hit seven of his eight shots, but his attempt at a lob pass to teammate Marco Belinelli went right through the rim for one of those baskets.

"It was supposed to be a backdoor pass to Marco," Hibbert said. "Just chalk that up to lucky."

Teammate Kemba Walker took the opposing view.

"Great shot by Roy!" Walker said with a laugh. "That was hilarious."

This story was originally published January 18, 2017 at 10:50 PM with the headline "Hornets get glimpse of old Roy Hibbert - for one night, anyway."