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Jazz F Boozer to undergo knee surgery
Already struggling to stay afloat in the Western Conference, the Utah Jazz will be without their top scorer for the foreseeable future.
The Jazz announced Tuesday that All-Star forward Carlos Boozer will undergo arthroscopic surgery on his ailing left knee, which has failed to heal over the last five weeks.
Boozer originally suffered a strained quadriceps tendon and a bone bruise on November 19 as he went up for a rebound and landed awkwardly late in the fourth quarter of a victory over the Milwaukee Bucks.
The injury was not expected to be serious, and Boozer initially was listed as day-to-day. However, he has missed 21 consecutive games, further depleting a Jazz lineup that has been plagued by injuries all season long. Boozer has undergone three separate MRIs, with doctors finally confirming that he would need surgery on his left knee joint.
The Jazz have not set a timetable for Boozer’s return. But according to a report Tuesday in The Salt Lake Tribune, general manager Kevin O’Connor has said the two-time All-Star will be sidelined for at least another month.
Setting things back even further is a laceration “very near the scope site” that hasn’t yet healed, pushing the date of surgery back to January 9.
That is troublesome news for the Jazz, who are also without Boozer’s replacement - rising star Paul Millsap - for the next week with a sprained left knee. The team has already lost some ground in the playoff race due to star point guard Deron Williams’ ankle injury that sidelined him 13 games and recurring back trouble for All-Star center Mehmet Okur.
Prior to going down, Boozer was averaging a team-best 20.5 points and 11.7 rebounds per contest. He has repeatedly stated his desire to get back on the court as soon as possible, but has admitted that he is still feeling too much pain in the knee to perform effectively.
However, Boozer has made more headlines over the last month talking about his contract situation - publicly announcing that he will opt out of his current contract next summer - than he has for anything basketball-related.
The Jazz have gone 11-10 in Boozer’s absence. At 19-14, they are 1 1/2 games behind the Denver Nuggets in the Northwest Division, which the Jazz have won in each of the last two seasons.
As Boozer’s injury problems lingered and the timing for his potential return remained consistently ambiguous, his star dimmed somewhat as Millsap rattled off 15 consecutive double-doubles.
Boozer’s toughness has been publicly and repeatedly called into question both locally and nationally - especially when Millsap went down hard with what appeared to be a serious knee injury on December 23, then returned to the court after halftime despite the injury.
This is not the first time that such concerns have come up for Boozer. He missed 80 games over his first two seasons with the Jazz - once again with injuries that seemed to take an inordinate or unexpected amount of time to heal. In 2004-05, it was his foot that kept him out for 31 games as the Jazz slipped to 26-56, leading team owner Larry Miller to publicly question his heart.
The following campaign, Boozer suffered a strained hamstring that sidelined him for 49 games. The Utah fan base may have been spoiled by nearly two decades of Karl Malone, who missed only a handful of games his entire career while battling the typical nicks and bruises of an NBA power forward.
