OssaTron treatment? At least the phrase isn't as ominous as the more generic description: Shock wave therapy. That sounds like something related to a lobotomy, or a page from the Michael Vick School of Canine Discipline.
That the Heat believes shock wave therapy is the latest, elusive solution for Dwyane Wade's wounded knee is scary. Sounds like desperation. Like we're-out-of-answers. Like anyone-know-a-decent-witch-doctor? Or like the last stop before further surgery.
So the fragile care and anxious handling of a franchise's prized possession took a sharp turn Monday, when the Heat aborted Wade's season in mounting frustration over a left knee that clearly isn't right.
Wade hasn't been Wade all season. That we've known.
But will he ever be again? Can't say yet -- the not knowing is far more troubling to this club than the embarrassment of an unfathomable record now 11-51.
''It's a lost season,'' coach/president Pat Riley said of the decision to shut down his best player with 21 games left. ``We don't want it to be a lost career.''
This Heat season has been a cursed, luckless, god-forsaken wasteland, the mocking opposite of that NBA championship only two summers earlier.
SOMEWHAT FITTING
So how fitting to this year's mess that the latest effort to repair Wade would be a procedure regarded dubiously in its application to knees.
And how fitting to these bizarre days that ''Wade lost for season'' would actually be a welcome headline as No. 3 trying to get healthy finally is conceded as more important than trying to win, say, 18 games instead of 14.
In other Heat news Monday, the club waived Smush Parker, the free agent failure whose highlight here was being suspended over an altercation with a female parking valet. Miami lost at home 99-98 to the nearly-as-bad L.A. Clippers, before a downtown arena half-filled by willing masochists.
Hey, back to the miracle OssaTron!
''You pull out the big machine and you deliver a punch,'' one knee doctor described it Monday. ``It gives the subject immediate feedback, which is pain.''
Dr. Ronald Grelsamer, knee specialist with the Department of Orthopedics at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York, told us that shock wave therapy is commonly used on feet and ankles, but not on knees.
''The idea is, you transmit a powerful sound wave that will quiet down irritated tissue,'' he said. ``A variation is what urologists use to break up kidney stones.''
It is a pain-inducing 30-minute procedure followed by 30 days or so of rest and light rehab. The negative as relates to the knee -- what makes ''the jury out'' on such treatment, Dr. Grelsamer said -- is that its effectiveness is in question. Even supporters admit it tends to provide only temporary relief.
''That's part of the controversy,'' he said. ``What exactly are you doing? By the time someone has had shock wave therapy it's probably because they've tried the routine things, such as physical therapy, rest, medication, maybe cortisone injections -- and nothing has worked to satisfaction.''
Dr. Grelsamer hasn't treated Wade but said shock wave therapy in this situation seemed like ''a last resort'' before a possible second surgery to remove scar tissue.
Remember that Riley first said (based on what team doctors told him) that it might take Wade 20 games to regain his old form. Now, after 60, they admit he's nowhere close.
Wade after this will have missed 91 games in five seasons: a high-flying, daring player with durability issues.
MORE QUESTIONS
Questions simmer under the surface. Was the original knee surgery last May 15 to solve Wade's tendinitis as successful as it might have been? Did he return from it too soon? Should Monday's shutting down have come even sooner?
One more question: Shouldn't Wade spend his summer with the clear priority of resting and rehabbing his knee to be 100 percent for the next NBA season?
Instead, ''I'm still committed to the Olympic team,'' Wade said Monday.
So a player not healthy enough to finish the last fourth of his season will be healthy enough for two hard summer months competing through the Beijing Games?
I'd feel better if the color scheme for the decision was red, white and blue or even gold, instead of green. Wade's many sponsors -- especially Converse -- are pushing hard for their man to push the brand internationally.
Gone are the days when a superstar was beholden only to his team. Or when a coach, even one with the respect and heft of Riley, had the power to step in.
''That's his personal decision,'' Riley said of Wade and the possibility rest would be better for him and the Heat. The chance of an injury Riley raised himself, adding, ``There's a lot of insurance we carry on him.''
Wade averaged 24.5 points this season -- fifth in the NBA -- despite a knee that some nights made him wince, and on good nights merely caused discomfort. This defines Wade's greatness almost as much as his summer of '06.
Yet, that '06 Wade was in the mix with Kobe and LeBron when you debated the game's best player. This one wasn't even mentioned among the league's five best shooting guards when NBA analysts debated the topic.
Wade understands. Only he can feel the difference.
''I can't be as good as I want to be, as athletic. Certain movements hurt,'' he said. ``That quick explosion wasn't there. If I took off too explosive I'd feel it in my knee. Moving lateral, too. A lot of little things that make you think too much.''
The Heat has the ability for a quick turnaround back to playoff status next season with a starting-point triumvirate of Wade, Shawn Marion and a pending very high draft pick -- especially if it is Kansas State's Michael Beasley.
But all of that starts with a fully healthy Wade.
Surgery, physical therapy, rest, pills, injections and time haven't achieved that.
Now it's shock wave therapy as a desperate man too young for doubts tries simply to be himself again.
