Leandro Barbosa to play with an injured wrist
Brazilian spitfire Leandro Barbosa will be available when the Toronto Raptors kick of their 2010-11 NBA season campaign against the new-look New York Knicks on Wednesday night at the Air
Canada Centre in Toronto.
Barbosa, who has been the Raptors go-to-guy since the off-season trade that sent Hedo Turkoglu to the Phoenix Suns, injured his right wrist on Friday, but he decided to pass on a surgery
to play on opening night for the Raptors, who need a lot of help with their offense after losing Chris Bosh during the summer.
Bosh, who was Toronto’s main man for the past seven years, opted to join forces with Dwyane Wade and LeBron James in Miami, but Barbosa and the rest of the Toronto Raptors squad are up to
the challenge ahead of them this season.
The 27-year old guard practiced on Tuesday with a heavily-taped wrist and when asked by reporters about the possibility of being sidelined because of the impending surgery, Barbosa said that
he’ll suit up for the team as long as he can endure the pain from his sore wrist.
"It’s not 100 per-cent, but I’m going to play and be there with my teammates and try to do my best, so if I feel comfortable, everything will be okay. If not then I’ll have to do a couple
of things," said Barbosa, who will still come off the bench despite being one of their main scoring threats.
"We’ll see how far we go and If I don’t feel comfortable and I feel like I can’t shoot the ball and can’t dribble, I’ll have to go in a different direction," Barbosa added.
The seven-year NBA veteran and a native of Sau Paulo, Brazil admitted that he was bothered by his ailing wrist even before the incident happened last week.
According to him, the problem stemmed from the surgery he had last season that removed a cyst from his wrist, which sidelined him for about two months.
"I had a surgery last season and I don’t know if they didn’t do it right or they didn’t finish right so they want me to come back for the playoffs, but there’s no ligament at all.
The surgery I did was to remove a cyst. The cyst was attached to the ligament, so when they took out the cyst the ligament was already bad."
Tags: