Antawn Jamison was shocked to learn that his shoulder injury was going to keep him out a full 6-8 weeks. On Monday he was taking left-handed free throws. Perhaps some shooting practice tomorrow.
“I thought it was something that was going to keep me out a couple days, and once the swelling went down I was going to be back to normal,” said Jamison. “Once he told me the timeframe, it kind of threw me for a loop. I didn’t think it was that serious whatsoever because I felt, once I got back in the locker room that night and it kind of calmed down, I felt like I could’ve come back out there and played.”
Instead, he’ll miss tomorrow’s season opener, making it just 61 out of 247 possible games that he’s started with Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas. They’re stuck on ten since Arenas originally hurt his knee in April 2007.
“I’m always trying to get out there as quick as possible,” said Jamison. “But this is something that’s very serious. If it comes out again, they talking about surgery or something like that. I definitely don’t want that to happen so just hearing that makes me realize that I gotta make sure that everything’s the way it needs to be, see the doctors and get the okay from them because I feel like I can play right now.”
“It’s just frustrating for me because I finally got in shape,” said Jamison. “I wasn’t being sore. I was ready to go, just getting into that mind frame. Now I’m in a situation where I’m getting back in shape, my knee’s hurting again so it’s like I’m starting back over, but you know for me, it’s just getting one hundred percent healthy. The next step is getting some shots up and getting into a rhythm, and hopefully I can get back out there soon.”
Wait a sec, what was that about a knee? I’ll try to ignore that – for now.
As for the Wizards themselves, who open the regular season at Dallas tomorrow night, here’s head coach Flip Saunders’ assessment of the preseason: “We’re not probably as far along as we might like to be. We’re kind of in between where you might be and where you thought you might be.”
Not exactly a resounding endorsement.
Saunders said he’ll announce who’s starting at shooting guard tomorrow. I’m just going to make a guess at the starting five: Arenas, Mike Miller, Butler, Fabricio Oberto and Brendan Haywood.
“It’s a tough challenge, going to play Dallas,” said Saunders. “There are positives because it’ll a yardstick, as far as where we’re at. My main thing is I just want to see our guys in this type of situation because we’ve had some guys that I think have held back a little bit in the preseason, and we’ve held back guys from minutes standpoint. We’ve held back some of our play call situations. Now we’ll be able to throw the kitchen sink out and see where we’re really at.”
Saunders isn’t worried about his own game speed after being out of the NBA for a season: “When you’ve coached 800-900 games in this league, it’s like riding a bike, you don’t forget how to do it. It’s just a matter of understanding your team, understand what you have.”
He does have a 15-man roster, as the Wizards decided to keep training camp invitee Paul Davis.
“Flip and Ernie [Grunfeld] made it pretty clear about what they expected and what they wanted,” said Davis, who spent the last three seasons with the Los Angeles Clippers. “Just come in and defensively play solid, and pick up the plays and sets, rebound open jumpers, and that’s basically what I think my role is on the team.”
