Nicolas Batum, who was expected to be the Trail Blazers starting small forward in Tuesday's season opener, instead will have surgery on his right shoulder.
The team announced this morning that Batum has a torn labrum and the surgery will be Friday.
Some quick notes on the injury:
* Batum said he has been told that the recovery time for his surgery will be three to five months. That means the best case scenario for his return is early February.
* Batum was going to start opening night. Coach Nate McMillan refused to detail his revamped rotation plans at Monday’s practice, but multiple players said Martell Webster would assume the starting small forward position. He ran with the first unit during Monday’s practice.
* Expect McMillan to use a variety of lineups in the second unit in Batum’s absence. McMillan said he has not ruled out maintaining a 10-man player rotation, which would thrust Juwan Howard into the backup power forward spot and slide Travis Outlaw over to backup small forward. Outlaw and Rudy Fernandez should receive even more playing time. It’s also possible that Jerryd Bayless and Dante Cunningham get some minutes, depending upon matchups. Brandon Roy will almost certainly play more minutes at small forward, particularly late in games.
* This is not a new injury for Batum. He originally injured his shoulder last season on March 11 in the third quarter of a 93-89 loss to the Dallas Mavericks at the Rose Garden. He labored through the rest of the season — and during the summer as part of the French National Team — but had hoped the worst was behind him heading into training camp.
You may remember that Batum left his national team in August and flew to Portland to get examined by Blazers’ doctors. He was cleared and allowed to return to international competition.
But Batum said the pain had gradually become too much to play through over the last two weeks. He routinely aggravated the injury during games and practices, when he would run into screens or have his arm tugged by a defender. He dinged the shoulder in the first quarter of the Blazers’ last exhibition game against the Suns on Thursday and the pain had become too much.
The breaking point came during Sunday’s practice, when he ran into a Greg Oden screen.
“I got screened by Greg and it was too much for me,” Batum said. “I run to (athletic trainer) Jay (Jensen’s) office almost crying because it was too much pain for me.”
The injury means the Blazers will start the season with three of their 15 players inactive because of injury: Batum, Patty Mills and Jeff Pendergraph.
-- Joe Freeman
The team announced this morning that Batum has a torn labrum and the surgery will be Friday.
Some quick notes on the injury:
* Batum said he has been told that the recovery time for his surgery will be three to five months. That means the best case scenario for his return is early February.
* Batum was going to start opening night. Coach Nate McMillan refused to detail his revamped rotation plans at Monday’s practice, but multiple players said Martell Webster would assume the starting small forward position. He ran with the first unit during Monday’s practice.
* Expect McMillan to use a variety of lineups in the second unit in Batum’s absence. McMillan said he has not ruled out maintaining a 10-man player rotation, which would thrust Juwan Howard into the backup power forward spot and slide Travis Outlaw over to backup small forward. Outlaw and Rudy Fernandez should receive even more playing time. It’s also possible that Jerryd Bayless and Dante Cunningham get some minutes, depending upon matchups. Brandon Roy will almost certainly play more minutes at small forward, particularly late in games.
* This is not a new injury for Batum. He originally injured his shoulder last season on March 11 in the third quarter of a 93-89 loss to the Dallas Mavericks at the Rose Garden. He labored through the rest of the season — and during the summer as part of the French National Team — but had hoped the worst was behind him heading into training camp.
You may remember that Batum left his national team in August and flew to Portland to get examined by Blazers’ doctors. He was cleared and allowed to return to international competition.
But Batum said the pain had gradually become too much to play through over the last two weeks. He routinely aggravated the injury during games and practices, when he would run into screens or have his arm tugged by a defender. He dinged the shoulder in the first quarter of the Blazers’ last exhibition game against the Suns on Thursday and the pain had become too much.
The breaking point came during Sunday’s practice, when he ran into a Greg Oden screen.
“I got screened by Greg and it was too much for me,” Batum said. “I run to (athletic trainer) Jay (Jensen’s) office almost crying because it was too much pain for me.”
The injury means the Blazers will start the season with three of their 15 players inactive because of injury: Batum, Patty Mills and Jeff Pendergraph.
-- Joe Freeman
