Brandon Roy On Road To NBA Comeback After Retiring Before Last Season

The Minnesota Timberwolves reportedly met with Roy in Seattle on Saturday night, a reasonable excuse for his absence in Spokane. Chicago, Dallas, Golden State and Indiana round out Roy’s five finalists. The players participating in the A PLUS Classic lent their support and excitement for Roy’s return.

”Lord Willing, I will play again soon,” Roy said.

The healthy caveat remains a big one, considering Roy retired last season due to chronic knee pain at a rather young age, but there’s been talk of a comeback for a couple of weeks. Now, thanks to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski, the public has also found out which teams might actually be interested if Roy makes his way back to the NBA.

Plenty of Seattle-area players have mentioned that Roy is back to full health -- draft prospect Tony Wroten even went a bit further -- so it’ll be interesting to see how many more teams are added to this list if they’re unable to get what they were looking for on Thursday night.

For more on the Warriors, head over to Golden State Of Mind and check out SB Nation Bay Area.

NBA.com’s fantastic Scott Howard-Cooper talked to Tony Wroten, the University of Washington guard who figures to land in the high teens or 20s in the 2012 NBA Draft. Wroten talked about working out with UW/Seattle area legend Brandon Roy, who retired last December at age 27 due to knee trouble.

This says one of two things about these two dudes:

“Yes, I’m preparing for a comeback, ” said Roy, in a series of tweets. “I’m training daily. I’m preparing for a return next year. I appreciate the love. Hopefully I’ll be back on the floor soon. Health is good.”

Roy also noted that, because of the terms of the amnesty clause, it is highly unlikely that he would come back to the NBA with the Trail Blazers. Any team that signs Roy will want to perform their medical due diligence, but if Roy is healthy enough to play there’s no doubt he can contribute in the NBA. Roy was a three-time All-Star before chronic knee injuries derailed his career.

For more on Portland, visit Blazer’s Edge.

Under a medical retirement, Roy will still get paid the $64 million he’s owed over the next four seasons, but the salary will come off of the Blazers’ cap sheet beginning next season. That means that Portland will not have to use the amnesty clause on Roy. The Blazers have no other obvious options for amnesty, though, and using the clause on Roy would speed up his removal from the cap sheet by one year.

If Roy were to return to the court within a year of the medical retirement, his cap hit would return to the Blazers’ book.

A medical retirement will allow the Blazers to remove his contract from the books beginning next season, provided that Roy doesn’t return to the court before then and a league-appointed doctor agrees that the All-Star guard is no longer able to play.

Roy is owed $64 million over the next four seasons. He signed a maximum-value contract three years into his NBA career, by which point he’d already won the Rookie of the Year award and made two All-Star Games. He needed surgery just before the 2010 NBA Playoffs, then surgery one each knee last winter. He has come back quickly from all procedures, but has lost effectiveness.