Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins is making good progress from his torn left Achilles tendon and will be “integrated into controlled aspects of team practices” in the near future, according to a team release. He is not ready to participate in scrimmages at this point but he will continue off-court strength and conditioning, the release adds. While the news is encouraging, it’s apparent that Cousins won’t see the court any time soon. Golden State will take it slow with its surprise free agent prize to make sure he’s healthy for the postseason. Golden State hasn’t set a timetable for his return. Cousins signed a one-year, $5.3MM pact with the aim of winning a ring before returning to the free agent market.
We have more injury-related news from around the league:
- Dwight Howard didn’t travel with the Wizards for the start of their five-game road trip, Candace Buckner of the Washington Post tweets. Howard returned to practice last week after suffering a buttocks injury during training camp but has yet to make his Washington debut. It’s possible Howard could rejoin the team during the trip but the fact that he didn’t travel to Portland for the game on Monday night suggests his return is not imminent.
- Rockets point guard Brandon Knight isn’t close to returning, Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle reports. Acquired from the Suns in late August, Knight sat out last season after surgery on his left ACL. He then developed an infection after another minor procedure during the offseason that dramatically set back his rehab, according to Feigen. There’s no timetable for Knight’s return. “I feel it’s going well,” Knight said. “Every day I’m working hard to feel like my normal self, to get back to playing, game mode. It’s tough to put a timetable on things. Just going day-by-day and attack each day as best I can and win the day. That’s kind of how I look at it.”
- Spurs guard Dejounte Murray underwent knee surgery on Friday, Shams Charania of The Athletic tweets. Murray suffered a torn right ACL during a preseason game and is expected to miss the season.
Howard is still butt hurt?
Cousins is still hurt? Remember all the crying about it not being “fair”? Achilles is the injury that expedited Kobe’s retirement. Btw, how’s McGee doing with LA?
#Not even a Warriors fan.. haters (crybabies) just annoying. feel lucky to have watched this team.
If he plays well in the postseason no one will care how much time he missed in the regular season.
A 7ft 280 pound man coming of a torn Achilles injury will not make an impact in the playoffs if he doesn’t play any regular season games.
He’ll make an impact just off who he’s playing with in Golden State. You can’t heavily focus on him down low because of the spacing Curry, Thompson and Durant provide.
Basketball isn’t just played on one end my friend. I hope you no(in the playoffs) he is going to have to be able to guard elite guards the whole time he is on the floor.
I hope you know good defense is played on a string with 5 players. It’s not strictly all on him defensively.
I’m really disappointed that Dejounte Murray got hurt (I’m sure he’s disappointed too!).
I was looking forward to what this new-look Spurs team could do this year, and I thought that Murray was poised to take a big jump forward.
I suspect the Spurs will still find a way to win more often than not, but clearly they’d be a better team with Murray.