Brandon Roy: Blazers Make It Official, Use Amnesty on Fallen Star

Brandon Roy's days in a Portland Trail Blazers uniform are officially over.

According to Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski via Twitter, the Trail Blazers have decided to use the amnesty clause on Roy:

Wojnarowski subsequently noted that the Trail Blazers had the option of letting Roy take a medical retirement, but decided to amnesty him instead.

Wojnarowski also noted that the Blazers had to amnesty Roy so they could sign free agent guard Jamal Crawford to a mid-level exception contract. Per ESPN's Chris Broussard, the Blazers did just that on Thursday, signing Crawford to a two-year contract worth $10 million.

Last Friday, The Oregonian reported that Roy was planning to retire after team doctors told him his knees simply couldn't take it anymore. Roy has undergone six operations on his knees, and no longer has any cartilage left in either knee.

“You can’t do this,” said a doctor to Roy, according to inside sources. “You might end up not walking.”

All of this is a crushing turn of events not just for the Trail Blazers and Roy personally, but the NBA as a whole. Roy was one of the game's rising young stars, and he had a very bright future ahead of him before his knees started to deteriorate.

Roy burst into the league out of Washington in the 2006-2007 season, averaging nearly 17 points per game on his way to winning Rookie of the Year honors. He continued to improve over the course of the next three seasons, making the All-Star team in all three.

Roy had been battling knee problems since college, but they didn't really get to him until last season, when he was limited to just 47 games and 23 starts. His performance suffered greatly, and it was clear that he just wasn't the same player.

Exactly what comes next for Roy remains to be seen. For now, all we know is that his career is ending way too soon.