Hey, it's not my pain, so I trust athlete

As long as there are athletics there will be athletic injuries that defy explanation other than that they hurt.

Luol Deng apparently has one. Monday morning in Miami the Bulls forward tested his ailing leg and said he couldn't play Monday night against the Heat.

A specialist also looked at Deng's leg, which in complex technical medical terms suffers a shin owie. Yet amateur Dr. McDreamys are certain Deng has a brain cramp, heart problem or iron deficiency.

Let's face it, sports fans and sports teams expect a player to play, especially in a season when he's being paid $9 million.

Leave it all on the court, fella, and "all" includes your leg or whatever body part is in question. We'd play for the Bulls for free, you know. You owe us.

Poppypoop.

My policy on this issue is uncomplicated: An athlete is too hurt to play if he says he's too hurt to play.

Former Astros pitcher J.R. Richard set the parameters when he insisted he didn't feel well enough to go to work. He was doubted. Then he suffered an essentially career-ending stroke. Sorry, big guy.

Not everyone can have the pain threshold of a Dan Hampton, the former Bears defensive lineman and current sports-talk host on WSCR-AM.

When Hampton played back in the 1980s he was - to steal from the Police song - the "King of Pain" because he kept keeping on despite myriad injuries and surgeries.

Then there's Cubs outfielder Milton Bradley. Monday's Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that as a Ranger last season he was suspected of malingering.

Bradley sat out from DH duties with what some teammates considered phantom maladies while Texas shortstop Michael Young played with broken fingers on both hands.

Astonishingly, Bradley ad- mitted in the article that he wasn't fully committed to playing hurt in 2008 because the Rangers weren't fully committed to him contract-wise.

Ouch!

(Relax, Cubs fans, Bradley said his mind-set is different now because the Cubs gave him a three-year deal.)

Back to Deng, who might or might not have heard the whispers inside and outside the Berto Center that he should play through the pain.

Maybe those same sages believe Deng's family should have stayed in The Sudan to fight a civil war instead of fleeing to Egypt when he was a youngster.

Anyway, if I have a choice between trusting an athlete who says he can't play or his team, fans and the media who suspect he can -

Well, post-J.R. Richard I'll trust the athlete every time, sometimes correctly, sometimes incorrectly, but until that's determined, the patient gets the benefit of doubt.

Teams will use athletes until they use them up. Then they'll discard them and ask the next group of guys to sacrifice their long-term health for short-term purpose.

So when Deng says there's too much pain to play, that's the end of the story until he says he's ready to go or ready for surgery.

Yes, Deng might be soft even for a basketball player, with a threshold for pain unacceptable in a professional athlete. If so, the Bulls will have to pay for not identifying that flaw before signing him to a big-money contract.

But the doubters owe Deng an apology if he's seriously injured.

mimrem@dailyherald.com