Chris Paul suffers minor thumb injury one opening day of training camp for Olympics – NBA News
The U.S Basketball team for the Summer Olympics in London this year has already been hit with setbacks due to injuries to star players making them unavailable for the games. On the first day of training camp for the Olympics in Las Vegas, the team faced
yet another scare when point guard and probable starter Chris Paul injured his thumb while training with the team.
Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press reported:
“Chris Paul was forced to leave to get an X-ray after hurting his thumb. The Americans don’t believe the injury is serious and hope Paul can practice Saturday.”
It was an initial scare as Paul had to leave the court to get his thumb checked out, but the team management and coaching staff breathed a sigh of relief when it was learnt that the injury was not serious and Paul could practice with the team the next day.
The U.S Basketball team is heading into the Olympics this year with an injury depleted roster. Dwight Howard, Derrick Rose, Dwyane Wade, LaMarcus Aldridge, Chris Bosh have all been sidelined with injuries. The team is particularly short on center and power
forward players, though LeBron James, Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony are on the team and can play at the power forward position if the need arises. Tyson Chandler is tipped to be the starting center, with Kevin Love and Blake Griffin capable of handling
the responsibilities at the low post.
New Orleans Hornets number 1 pick at this year’s NBA Draft Anthony Davis was invited to the training camp as a member of the preliminary squad after Howard was sidelined with injury and Lamar Odom decided to opt out of the games to get him ready for the
next NBA season. Davis too suffered an ankle sprain this week while practising with the Hornets team.
Initial reports said that Davis would be out for two weeks, ruling him out of the Olympics. However, Davis managed to make the trip to Las Vegas after U.S basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski said that Davis would be kept in the team and if he was unfit to play,
he would be replaced.
Davis was present at the first practice session in Las Vegas but sat out due to the ankle sprain. It is unclear when he will be healthy enough to participate in the practice sessions.
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