Kevin Love opens up about his hand injury; Calls it "pretty much a freak accident" – NBA Update
Ever since Kevin Love broke two bones in his hand while doing knuckle push-ups back on Oct 17, rumours have rife that the talented Minnesota Timberwolves power forward made up the story to hide some sort of embarrassing behaviour.
On Wednesday though, Love, speaking for the first time about his injury publically, stuck to his story;
"I've heard everything," He said. "But this isn't TMZ. This isn't People Magazine. I think most people are just looking for a story. For me, I know what happened. I'm not trying to get around it. I'm not trying to lie. That's just
what happened."
"I do different series of push-ups all the time. My hand just gave on me," Love said, "and it just broke."
The accident came as major blow for the T’Wolves, who are already without Ricky Rubio for at least a quarter of next season. The fracture has ruled Love out for about 4-6 weeks and considering the rehabilitation and conditioning
time, a return before Christmas looks improbable.
This would mean that a lot of load will fall on the new Minnesota recruits, especially Andrei Kirilenko. The Wolves went through a major overhaul over the summer. They added Kirilenko, Alexey Shved, Brandon Roy, Chase Budinger
and Greg Stiemsma to put some valuable pieces around Love and Rubio. Little did they know however, that both of their core players will not be there to play a good part of the season.
Love even admitted that he held back on releasing an official statement - through the team website - by a day because he was wary of the fan reaction, given the whole Rubio injury situation;
"I think the human instinct is to kind of take all the pressure and all the blame onto yourself," he said. "I think that's a large part of what happened. I do feel like I'm a big part of this team, and for me not to be out there
the first few or several games, it kills me."
The Wolves take on the Sacramento Kings on Friday to open their season and will now have to rely on Derrick Williams, Dante Cunningham and Lou Amundson to fill in the minutes left vacant by Love.
They still have a powerful lineup coached by Rick Adelman. The only problem is that these guys have not played a lot together and against well primed teams, they can struggle in the early part of the season.
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