Perk could return ahead of schedule — but shouldn’t

We linked to Steve Bulpett's piece on Perk's recovery in the Morning Dump, but I wanted to call out part of it specially:

Perkins looked to be almost in full swing as he made his way around the court with Rogers. None of his movements looked forced, leading one to wonder what he cannot do.

“(Expletive),” said Perk, the Texas dripping off his voice like the sweat from his workout gear. “I don’t know. I can pretty much do everything. It’s picking up. I’m running on the treadmill now. The only thing they haven’t let me do yet is move side to side. I think that’ll come when I put my brace on. They’re telling me that’ll happen towards the end of this month.”

"Almost in full swing?" That's pretty encouraging. Bulpett also notes that if everyone were on board, Perk could pull a Welker and return ahead of schedule. Perk sounded pretty mature in explaining that the benefits of waiting another month — at least until the All-Star break — was the right thing to do.

But I love what I'm hearing: He can do almost everything (if you ignore moving side to side…). He's working on his shooting, even doing his Tim Duncan impression using the glass. KWAPT confirms this — he took the above picture and noted that before the game Perk was indeed working on his bank shots, and looked very fluid doing so.

But the important thing is not that Perk innovates, but that he just builds himself back up. We don't need anything more from Perk, we need him to be him — tough and physical and unafraid. With Jermaine already down, Erden only semi(!)-effective, and Shaq fairly likely to tire or get hurt, we need Perk as close to 100% for the playoff run.

So let's not get too encouraged by talk of his game changing, or his schedule accelerating, let's focus on him coming back as himself, and when we need him.