Mashburn will sit out the season

[timvp]

Hornet's goal: Comeback attempt in 2005-06

By Marc Stein
ESPN.com

The New Orleans Hornets are moving to the Western Conference without Jamal Mashburn ... for at least one season.

Mashburn and the Hornets will announce later Monday that the former All-Star will spend this entire season on the injured list in hopes of making one last comeback attempt in 2005-06, league sources have told ESPN.com.

Mashburn, 31, was limited to 19 games last season because of a deteriorating knee condition that threatens to force his retirement.

Although the announcement does bring some clarity to the Hornets' plans for their first season in the West, after months of speculation about Mashburn's future, the realization that his season is already over -- and his career in jeopardy -- is a big blow for a team moving to a conference with no fewer than 13 legitimate playoff contenders.

Byron Scott, the Hornets' new coach, can still build around the talented twosome of point guard Baron Davis and center Jamaal Magloire, but Mashburn's knee troubles rule out the possibility that he might be traded for an asset. Upgrading the roster is a priority for the Hornets in the wake of Davis' recent request to be traded.

Marc Stein is the senior NBA writer for ESPN.com

sports.espn.go.com/nba/co...id=1889787

[Brodels]

That's too bad. They may have competed for a playoff spot with a healthy Mashburn. It's hard to imagine him coming back next year after sitting out a year, but I guess it's not impossible.

He was certainly very talented offensively, even if he never was a true franchise player. He didn't do a lot of the little things, but he could fill it up. He would have made a great piece to a championship contender back in the day.

I know his at ude and his ability to get along with his teammates have been questioned, but I still feel for him. He was in the prime of his career when he got hurt and he really could have put up some impressive numbers.

[timvp]

I feel sorry for him. When he first had surgery, I had no idea that he was this bad off. He probably forced himself to try and come back too early last January and is now paying for it.

I hope he gets well. For the most part, I like the Hornets -- but they are going to get killed in the West.

--KORI

[KoriEllis]

One more setback -- the last? -- for unfulfilled Mashburn
Sept. 27, 2004
By Mike Kahn
SportsLine.com Executive Editor

www.sportsline.com/nba/story/7728322/1

If anyone was the total package coming into the NBA, it was Jamal Mashburn.

At 6-feet-8, 250 pounds, he came into the NBA in 1993 as the fourth pick overall by the Dallas Mavericks following his junior year, when he was a first-team All-American for Rick Pitino at Kentucky. He could shoot from anywhere on the court, back down any small forward, handle the ball like a guard and grab eight rebounds a game.

Eleven years later, the numbers have come and gone, and evidently, so has Mashburn.

Monday afternoon, Mashburn sat at a New Orleans Hornets press conference with general manager Allan Bristow and coach Byron Scott, men he's unlikely to play for again in the wake of the latest issue with his right knee. They declared him out for this season and quite possibly for his career.

You see, Mashburn, soon to be 32, played in only 19 games last season because of this matter of no cartilage behind the patella in that right knee; many an athlete knows that bone-on-bone feeling.

It's a shame too, considering 2002-03 was the season Mashburn had finally broken through. He played 82 games for the first time in his career, was an All-Star for the first time and really was the best small forward in the game, averaging 21.6 points, 6.1 rebounds and 5.6 assists.

Gone was the memory of him deferring to Jason Kidd and Jimmy Jackson at Dallas. Fading were the many moments at Miami when he failed to take -- let alone make -- big shots for the Heat. Subsequently, he was dealt to the Hornets, then in Charlotte, in that whopper of a nine-man deal with the Heat in the summer of 2000.

Oh, that first year was special with the Hornets, too. They shockingly crushed the Heat in spectacular payback fashion for coach Paul Silas in the first round of the playoffs, and Mashburn averaged just a shade less than 25 points in the playoffs.

But other than that 2002-03 season, it has been nothing but one physical woe after another.

From a dislocated finger to positional vertigo to a problematic left knee, a strained abdominal muscle and bruised sternum, the list rambles on. If you include this season, he will have played in 141 out of a possible 328 games during a four-season stretch.

Even more upsetting for the franchise was his decision to rehab in Miami last season, ignore the team when it came to town to play the Heat and even blame them for misdiagnosis of his injury.

Calling it a mess would be an understatement.

"It's tough," Mashburn said at the press conference. "Right now, it's a quality of life thing. It's difficult walking around for a long period of time. I'm hoping with rest and the lack of pounding that things will heal themselves, and maybe there's a chance of playing at the end of the year. It's frustrating mentally."

That would include everybody close to the situation. The Monster Mash might as well be mashed potatoes. With All-Star guard Baron Davis pining for a trade and showing no signs of becoming the leader they need him to be, the return of Mashburn was their one morsel of hope that they could seriously compete in their new position in the Western Conference.

Certainly Scott, entering his first season as coach after getting fired last February by the New Jersey Nets, was hopeful.

"First of all, in talking to Jamal during the summer, you could hear in his voice that he has a serious passion to play basketball," Scott said. "Let's get that straight right now. He wants to play basketball, and at this particular time, he cannot. As far as how it's going to affect our team ... you're taking away one of the premier small forwards in basketball."

That would be a healthy and excited Mashburn. It would be logical to presume Bristow wanted to make this move as quickly as possible with hopes of getting an exception for the coming season that would be half of Mashburn's salary, in the vicinity of $4.6 million. It will give them much more flexibility having that exception to tack on if they were to make a trade for a combination of players exceeding the players they are moving.

Surprisingly, Bristow didn't say anything about applying for the exception, which would lead you to wonder if they're really convinced Mashburn is out for the season.

"I think we'll take the wait-and-see approach and see how things materialize until next summer," he said.

Nobody can be expecting much. In fact, most of this summer, the buzz around the league was they were trying to peddle the damaged goods. The animosity between Mashburn and the organization has subsided with the hiring of Bristow and Scott, but that doesn't mean he'll ever play for them. Unless doctors and Mashburn agree to go into the knee with hopes of creating some scar tissue to buffer the bone on bone problem, he very well could be finished.

"After taking MRIs earlier in the summer, I had some hope," Mashburn said. "But then these last couple of months sealed my fate pretty much because the healing hadn't progressed the way that I thought it would. There's a process for me in the way I prepare myself. I wasn't able to get to that process so that's when I knew it was pretty serious.

"I think the organization and I came to the conclusion that you don't want to leave any doors shut, just in case something does happen where you can come back. I think that was the smart thing to do. Obviously, it helps everybody. It leaves the window open for me if I'm capable of coming back and playing basketball. I'm thankful for that door to still be open."

Unfortunately, all he can do for now is hobble through it. A reminder that if Jamal Mashburn wasn't a lock to be a superstar in the NBA -- which he will never be -- then nobody is.

[2pac]

When Mashburn was drafted, some members of the upper-level management of the Spurs thought he was going to be the top player in that draft.

Webber
Bradley
Penny
Mash
JR Rider
Bobby Hurley
Vin Baker
Lindsey Hunter
Allen Houston
Sam Cassell
NVE


I beleive the Spurs trade their first round pick for JR Reid.