Exam confirms Parker's hand fracture
Jeff McDonald
CLEVELAND — Further examination of Tony Parker's injured shooting hand Monday revealed both the diagnosis and prognosis the Spurs had feared.
Parker indeed has a non-displaced fracture of his fourth metacarpal and is expected to miss the next six weeks. Surgery will not be required.
If he were to stick to that timeline precisely, Parker might return for the final three games of the regular season. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, however, indicated the timeline might be fluid, depending upon how Parker's body responds.
“It might mean four to eight weeks,” Popovich said before Monday's 97-95 loss to the Cavaliers.
Parker injured the hand scrambling in Saturday's win at Memphis and returned to San Antonio for further evaluation. Dr. David Green, a hand specialist, examined Parker and confirmed the original diagnosis.
The sooner the Spurs can get Parker back, the better.
Even if Parker — who ranks second on the team in scoring and first in assists — does heal before the end of the regular season, it remains to be seen what kind of impact he might make in the playoffs.
“He's still going to have an adjustment when he comes back,” Popovich said of Parker. “All players need to get their rhythm back. It doesn't happen instantaneously. I don't expect him to be Tony Parker the day he comes back.”
The 13th man: Sometime this week, the Spurs are expected to sign point guard Cedric Jackson, late of the Development League's Erie BayHawks, in order to satisfy the NBA's minimum roster requirement.
The Spurs have had 12 players under contract since Michael Finley was bought out on March 1, one under the league mandate. Popovich said the Spurs were unlikely to add a 14th player to occupy Parker's roster spot.
“There's nobody we're going to sign that's going to help us,” Popovich said. “We might bring some guys in just to see if we can discover someone, or lock them up for summer league. But there's nobody we're going to bring in that's going to play.”
Jackson, a 6-foot-3 point guard, played out back-to-back 10-day contracts with the Cavaliers earlier this season.
Four to Eight?
Man it's hard to stay positive. But I'll keep going forward in this one. I really think that Spurs can figure it out enought to get a good spot and turn it up with out Tony until he returns.
I'd say we have a chance agains Jazz and Mavs with this team.
The Spurs should just sit Tony for the season. Rushing him back too soon for 2-3 regular season games and 4 playoff games would be a waste.
Three games might be enough to get bck in rythm... no? Let's stay positive!
We'll see. I hope he will come back asap. We need him.
Why??!!???
The silver line in that the rest of his body (especialy his left foot) and WILL BE ABLE TO STAY IN SHAPE because only his right hand has to stay "inactive"...
He could still work with the left one and train his body...
I think, like Bonner said, it will be a matter a finding his filling bck with his right hand, and the fact that he does't need surgery means it's not "that bad" to recover from...
Unfortunately this is unlikely - look how much it took Bonner to get any rhythm back returning from a very similar injury. You also have to consider Tony is the primary ballhandler so it'd probably take more time for him.
This season, somebody has been putting needles through a Tony voodoo doll . . .
Yup, I think there's a good 2 days in between the end of the regular season and the playoffs starting. Plenty of time for Parker to train himself in the art of left handed shooting and dribbling. Get Chip on the phone ASAP.
Pop's quote seems to indicate the team is going to run through a few 10 day contracts to evaluate talent. When they will have time to evaluate them is another question.
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