Injury updates

Just one game down, and already we are dealing with injuries. Could have been a lot worse with DC, but good news on that front. Check here for the full transcript of the phone conference with Howland.

Here are some Excertps:

On Darren Collison’s knee injury:

"It is basically going to be a pain tolerance situation with Darren. He can start playing as soon as he doesn’t have limitations because of the pain. He will not play Monday and we will see how he feels as the week progresses. He will be getting treatment every day. Based on the findings today, I can’t see him being out longer than a week to two weeks at the most. It shouldn’t be a long-term issue.

"He said that it happened on the first play of the game. He went for a steal in the middle of the floor and reached out with his right hand and, as that happened, his left leg made a funny movement, like a twist. There wasn’t any contact. I saw it on the film and it looked like he tweaked it with a sudden motion of his leg stopping and starting while twisting.

"[The finding] is an unbelievable relief. As you can imagine, I was sick to my gut just thinking about all of the possibilities, but didn’t want to talk about them until I knew what the facts were."

On Michael Roll’s injury:

"I have another unfortunate announcement, Michael Roll ruptured his plantar fascia in his left foot today. Two months ago, he had an injection put into that foot, and he has had problems with plantar fasciitis over the last year and a half. It just happened today. He just jumped up and then boom, he fell into a pile. It is terrible timing because he has been playing so well. Mike, clearly, is one of the guys that makes our team the best offensive team it can be. Our best offensive team was and will be this year (Darren) Collison, (Michael) Roll, (Josh) Shipp, Luc (Richard Mbah a Moute) and Kevin (Love). So we are going to definitely miss him. It seems unbelievable that we just had our first exhibition game and then we have two injuries that are fairly serious, it never ends."

On Josh Shipp’s injury:

"It happened in the game last night. I knew he had sprained it (right thumb), but I didn’t know how bad it was. Today was just hard for him. He started to practice, but every time he caught the ball, it was painful, so I pulled him out. I expect him to play on Friday (season opener against Portland State on Nov. 9). We had it X-rayed today and there was no break."


Anyway, Monday's game should be interesting, see you guys there.