Parker Injury Update

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As some of you may already know, The Spurs demanded that Tony Parker return to San Antonio to be given a second medical examination by the Spurs medical staff. Parker seemed confused by their request. In a quotation included in a statement by the French team, the Parker said (translation via Ziller-bot 9000), “I sincerely do not understand the decision considering the tests carried out by both French and Spurs doctors. I regret what has happened.”

According to initial reports, Parker had hoped to be ready to compete against Italy this coming Wednesday. Well, according to a report released earlier today, that won’t be happening: For the time being, Parker will remain in San Antonio to undergoe a rehabilitation program.

For further thoughts on the situation surrounding Tony, take a look at the second half of yesterday’s post by Tim.

N.B. I forgot to mention that the tests conducted in San Antonio confirmed the conclusion of those conducted in France: Parker has a mild ankle sprain, nothing more.

  • Area Man

    The best I can hope for is that Tony’s injury turns out to be much ado about nothing, and that his French national team advances in the qualifying round at Euroleague.

  • zack

    i really wish the best for tp, but he also has to understand that this is some concern for the spurs, kinda put off by his attitude. i know this sounds mean but the french national team is going to have a tough time qualifying regardless, w/ or w/out t.p

  • hobson13

    Thank God Parker is going to miss a national game or two even though I really don’t think his ankle is a big deal. I understand why the Spurs called him back home for more tests because there really is a conflict of interest between the Spurs and French National team. What do the French have to lose by playing Parker when he is less than 100% (thus increasing the likelihood of further injuring himself)? The French Team doesn’t pay his $10 million+ salary every year and could care less what happens in the NBA. Calling Tony back to SA served two purposes: 1) They can know for sure the extent of the injury. 2) SA can stall for time in hopes that Parker misses a few games with the French. The FO is surely the best in the League.

  • Todd

    Any comment about Bowen being released?

  • bigtee

    This may sound selfish but I hope they lose out so tony can rest up. sorry french national team, if i was from france I wouldn’t think this way but im not.

  • BB

    I’d rather Tony not be pissed that the Spurs denied the French national team an opportunity to advance because they didn’t trust their own medical staff’s opinion on his ankle. It’s frustrating enough for an athlete to not be able to help his team because of an injury - imagine what it’s like when you can’t compete because of no injury.

  • John

    Dear Tony,
    You don’t like it? That sucks. This is what happens when you leave your employer, to do things that another co-worker got hurt doing a year ago.

    Oh well, hopefully he just relaxes and gets the treatment he needs. Everything just relies on us staying healthy…we don’t need injuries in July, no matter how minor.

  • BB

    You know, for a bunch of fans who like to emphasize their team’s chemistry, I’m a little surprised by the tenor of reactions to all this. It’s like you guys (not all, mind) would rather tie Tony to a chair all off-season than have him happy with the organization. Manu got hurt in the offseason - it was bad luck, it happens, get over it. And I’m pretty sure the CBA doesn’t permit owners to determine a player’s schedule for the offseason.

  • hobson13

    BB,
    Who cares about team chemistry when players are too injured to play. Everyone’s already said that health is the most important thing for our championship aspirations. Tony’s been with the club 8 years. He’ll either understand or get over it.

  • krista

    How can Tony NOT understand the Spurs being overly cautious? After what happened to Manu last year and the huge financial commitment made for this upcoming season, the reason should be obvious.

    I completely understand the desire to represent your country, but Tony has to at least understand where the Spurs are coming from.

  • bigtee

    exactly holt has dropped his entire bank account into this season. In case you didn’t notice heavy equipment isn’t selling very good. No tony means no championship, simple as that. We need him health thats all.

  • bigtee

    This is extremely off topic however i wanted to post it in this forum since it’s spurs fans opinions I care about.

    In the summer of 2010 the big free agent class is well talked about and it is assumed that the spurs pulled the trigger on jefferson this offseason and have put themselves out of the running. I’ve been looking at the roster and it looks like these all have one year left on their contract according to espn’s trade machine,

    Marcus Williams
    Matt Bonner
    Michael Finley
    Manu Ginobili
    Roger Mason
    Theo Ratliff
    George hill
    Ian Mahinmi

    collectively their salaries equal 23.9 mill. just under 14 minus manu. technically they could let all of these guys go and offer lebron 24 mill a year or wade, or keep manu and offer 14 to bosh or amare. with a chance for a team of mcdyess duncan parker jefferson and lebron or wade plus we would still have blair, hairston and our many other player overseas any ideas, i know its a long shot, but we probably could keep manu even tho he will be 33 and hill and still go after bosh or amare,

  • zack

    i think the majority of us agree that the spurs did the right thing by bringing him back, the french have no chance of winning the gold, i mean its just a pointless attempt, i agree with hobson 13 they could really care less about the spurs or tony, its not like they have to deal with his pay or rehab! dont worry well get stuck with that

  • SpursfanSteve

    bigtee:

    Amare is a horrible defensive player. Hes a freak athlete, but hes proving to be rather injury prone. He wouldnt fit with the spurs at all. I think all the options you listed are pretty unrealistic. Manu will probably sign with us for a reduced price. Lebron probably wont leave Cleveland, but if he does it will be for a big market team like New York/New Jersey or LA. I’ve never seen much of Bosh, but i get the feeling hes a good, but overrated player. There is no way i would ever want Amare on our team. Hes got an ego the size of Texas, which fortunately none of our other players have.

    Wade is the most realistic of all the options, but i dont see him leaving Miami. And if he does, i think its also for a big market team where he can be “the man”. One thing all those guys have in common is that they are not role players. We’ve always had one superstar (Duncan) one all star (Manu) and one up and coming star (Parker) and lots of role players (everyone from Dennis Rodman to Sean Elliott). Add one more of anything else to the mix, and it can throw off the chemistry (look at the LA team of Payton, Malone, Shaq, and Kobe).

    I think we will keep the core we have (big 3 plus RJ), try to bring Splitter over, and keep most of our role players. I dont see any chance of us getting rid of Hill or Mason. They both fill roles perfectly for our team. Hill is an excellent combo guard and a good defender, and Mason is one of the best shooters on our team. Duncan is due to decline, as is Manu, but i think Parker is going to pick up the slack scoring, Blair is going to pick up the slack rebounding, and everyone else will keep doing what they are doing. Thats all we need from them. Next year, if Splitter finally comes over and is as good as advertised, we will still have the same formula: 1 Superstar (Parker) 1 All star (Duncan) and 1 up and coming star (Splitter). Manu at that point will be more of a role player, RJ will already be one this year, and Blair, Mason, and Hill will just have to focus on doing what they do best. We dont need Lebron or Wade or Bosh or Amare.

  • BB

    Getting rid of those guys to sign LBJ would destroy our bench. And I think he’d be a weird fit with our current system. If you’re going to have three superstars on the same team, you want their roles to be distinctly defined, like the Celtics. Otherwise, you’re paying a lot of money to two players whose potential contributions become redundant. As for other free agents, I don’t think we’ll find out what we need or don’t need until the end of the season. This roster has a high ceiling, but we don’t really know how they’re going to match up against other NBA teams.

  • bigtee

    well i kinda just threw those names out there because they were the most popular names I’m sure hill isn’t going anywhere, but there are alot of other really good guy’s available if we resign manu, for 9 mill and sign hill for 3. we could go after a few good guys, people like Thabo Sefolosha, Kelenna Azubuike,Raja Bell,Anthony Morrow, Shaun Livingston, ronnie brewer all come to mind, heres a link to the projected free agents. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?page=FreeAgents-09-10 Im just saying if this coming year doesn’t pan out like we hope, then their is still plenty of room for improvement.

  • drew

    BB,

    IF we signed James, we would dominate the NBA. But that’s the biggest IF i can possibly think of. No way that happens. (it’s more likely that the Clippers win a championship) But IF it did… can you imagine what RC could put together around TP, LeBron, and Splitter for years to come? BB, that would not be redundant. That would be world domination.

  • drew

    and about TP, I have a question. How big is this tournament he’s in? If it were the Olympics, I would understand why he’d be upset. But if it’s a tournament that’s not as important, he’s got to understand priorities. (plus I hear France doesn’t have a shot with him anyways.) Peter Holt has invested millions of dollars into Tony, and Peter Holt has invested many many millions of dollars into the season of 09-10. Tony’s health is key, so he shouldn’t be surprised to see an overreaction on the part of the Spurs.

  • drew

    (plus I hear France doesn’t have a shot with or without him anyways)*

  • drew

    ok, sorry for the four comments in a row, but i found some info on our cap situation for the summer of ’10.

    bigtee, unfortunately, our cap situation for next summer will only allow us to resign players and sign players at the MLE. Unless the cap goes above the projected 50-53M range.

    http://hoopshype.com/salaries/san_antonio.htm

  • http://amigosdedanielsantiago.blogspot.com Eric

    France has to win this qualifying tournament to get into Eurobasket, and then have to have a decent showing at Eurobasket to get into next year’s World Championships. They have a real shot at at least pulling that off, so it’s a pretty big deal.

    The little group stage in this final qualifying tournament is only four games, and they have to get first place to meet first place in the other group (and then beat that team to qualify for Eurobasket), so for Parker to miss one against their main opposition for first place within the group is a pretty big deal.

  • Jblock

    I wonder if TP gave that quote to the French newspaper in order to save face in front of his French team and fans. I suspect there will be little if any lasting hurt feelings between Parker and the Spurs.
    Does anyone else think this is a possibility?

  • BB

    Crazy hypotheticals: if the Spurs signed LeBron, they could get better complementary players with $12 million than Tony Parker. Tony’s great, a good passing point guard, but his greatest value is in his ability to make his own opportunities and score. With those $12 million I could sign two free agents that would be better complementary players for LBJ. Even better, I could trade Tony for a decent point and an all-star shooter. I’m not saying that the hypothetical lineup’s not nuts, but it seems like if you’re paying Tony 12 mil, you want a return on that as well as the money you’re paying LBJ.

    Also, Tiago Splitter?

  • Robby

    I don’t know why this thread has suddenly “turned into sign LBJ in the future talk”… The upcoming has not yet started, we have all the pieces to try to win another championship during the Duncan era… LBJ is great player but talking about signing him this early (and more likely a lllooooong shhoot) is a waste of time. Besides, don’t you guys honestly believe that we have a legitimate chance to win the title this upcoming season? c’mon guys! Go! Spurs! Go!

  • French Uncle

    Guys, we see a deep, insanable atlantic divide here…

    To make it clear to you: some soccer players earn more than TP by the spurs, and clubs moan often enough about injury during games for the national team. But there is not a f* chance in hell that they can order their player away from a similar qualifying game like the spurs did with TP.
    The bottom line is: the conflict between professional team sports and national team is recurrent in Europ, not only maybe during the Olympic games in the US, and is not solved like you would like it.

    And if you are about money: The Real MAdrid would never think of behaving like that with Cristiano Ronolda and the Portuguese team, because of the uproar and the lost merchandising for some years to come in Portugal and maybe somewhere else.

    But I guess so far the French people do not buy enough Spurs shirts, so it doesn’t count.

    Anyway, I don’t know you, but sometime one regret the times when sports was not abut $$$.

  • BB

    I don’t give a hoot about LBJ right now… For my part, I was thinking in hypothetically, not much different than if someone asked ‘what would the Spurs look like with Connie Hawkins’. And I have no idea how this season is going to play out, but I can only guess we’ll improve on last year. I figure we can make the Conference Finals if the team stays healthy. If so, who knows?

  • Wesley

    For all the “sign LBJ people”. Please read-up about the cap. We can resign players we already have but if we let them go we can only sign players up to the cap amount. LBJ, wade, amare, bosh?… Ain’t happening I’m afraid because next year, with the players we’ve already signed, we are already near the projected cap amount. All we’ll have is the MLE.

  • Bigtee

    Im sorry this turned into a sign lebron page, not what i intended. but I think most teams are going to press the league about this salary cap, some teams would have to cut to 4 or 5 players to stay in under the cap.

  • SpursfanSteve

    Bigtee:
    they wont have to cut anyone. after a player has been on the your teams roster for more than 3 years (i think thats the right time), you can re-sign them to go over the cap. For instance, when Manu’s contract expires next year, we could throw a max contract at him somewhere in the 20 mil a year range. that would put us way over the cap, but it would be an OK contract (from a cap standpoint) because he had already played with us for 3 years. Of course, it would be a horrible contract to actually give him, because hes old and isnt worth that type of money, but its a good example.

    French Uncle:
    i completely agree. i see both sides of this issue. and right now, the league’s policy prevents owners/coaches/etc from telling players they cant play for their national teams. So basically, either Pop/RC/Holt is going to get fined for doing so, or Tony is lying to save face in front of his french fans. I wouldnt be surprised if its a little of both.

  • http://www.sportssoundoff.net Jason

    Great sports blog man. I’m going to visit here more often. I have a sports blog myself and I would like to exchange links with you. Let me know. Jason

  • Bigtee

    Yeah i know about that it’s called larry bird rights, I wasn’t talking about our team. just others like the clippers for instance. some teams will have a difficult time keeping up with the rest of the league. I’ll try to find the page were i read a Gm talking about it. I like the direction our team is going, I think we have a great chance to win it this coming season.

  • BadgerSpur

    I suppose it’s possible that Tony is truly upset with the Spurs Front Office, but it seems equally plausible that he told the French Press exactly what IT wanted to hear, not necessarily how Tony really feels.

    Think about it. Tony wants the French to blame the Spurs for him not being there, instead of having them blame Tony. Remember, endorsement contracts and fame are on both sides of the ocean for this guy. Also, Tony might have wanted the time off just as much as we wanted him to have the time off. But, he cannot admit that to the French. I’m not saying I know what the man is thinking. However, many of the comments here have seemed to take issue with Tony’s comments without giving any consideration for the veracity of the comments or the motivation for same.

  • Jason

    I don’t buy a lot of these dire salary cap projections, the actual cap which gets calculated at the end of the season isn’t based on people’s feelings about the economy, but rather an objective formula based on ticket sales, team revenue, etc. Ultimately, if this season is a good one and ticket sales are up which they may be, then the cap may go up again.

    A lot has been said about the competitive equity in the league next year, but it looks like with the arms race we had this summer and the anticipation around next season should translate to some decent ticket sales and my personal (and academic) opinion is that the economic picture will be different next summer, I’d be very surprised if its much worse. Overall, I think the profile of the league has been rising this past decade and I’d expect ratings and ticket sales to continue to hold trend

  • Sean C

    Jason,
    20 NBA teams were in the red last year, meaning they lost money. Early word on season ticket sales say a few teams are selling well while many are struggling. To the best of my knowledge, the Spurs busy offseason has helped ticket sales, but we are still behind last year’s pace.

    It’s not far fetched to think we could be going into a lockout when the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires in 2010-2011. Owners are going to want guarantees on their investments and see changes to the exorbant size of player contracts.

  • Bigtee

    heres a link to some of the salary concerns from other nba guy’s. http://nba.fanhouse.com/2009/07/09/nba-execs-shrinking-salary-cap-changes-2010-plans/

  • maisar abdull

    honestly i was hoping that lamar odom wasn’t going to resign with the lakers, i’m a huge spurs fan but now i believe my team has no chance on returning back to the finals with odom,artest,and kobe all together. do other people feel the same or am i only with this one?

  • Mr. Anonymous

    Is it totally inconceivable for Jefferson to opt out of his contract and resign with us for less if we were to get him a ring? =|

    And there seems to be a bit of stick given to Tony for risking his healthy when he’s getting paid by the Spurs. But over here in Europe playing for your country is the highest honour - even if your country has little or no chance of winning.

  • Jason

    Sean,
    The league has already adjusted to deal with the economy, the teams that are profitable are spending big time into the luxury tax so that they can go deeper into the playoffs and make their money back in extra games. On the other hand, the teams that aren’t profitable have an excuse to cut salaries so they can position themselves for 2010, and because of the 2 distinct tears of teams forming (LA, SA, Dallas, Denver, Boston, Cleveland, Orlando v. Everyone Else) there will still be playoff spots for teams with very low payrolls to be competitive for.

    Even if ticket sales are down, the increased interest in the league this year should at least deliver higher TV revenues, and cheaper tickets will ultimately increase the league’s fan base by making the game experience more accessible, which will in turn drive up merchandise, vending, and TV ratings.

    Also, because the cap and tax were just lowered and because of the arms race we’ve seen this summer, there are actually more teams deeper into the luxury tax this year than last year, the money will be redistributed to those teams that are in the red along with money from another fund that basically amounts to a rainy day fund for NBA teams. The league is in much, much, much better shape than it was before the last lock-out, with the recent memory of what happened to the NHL and the fact that NBA ratings have actually been up for the past few years and Finals, I don’t see a lock-out happening.

  • Robby

    IF Jefferson will opt out his contract next year that will be a huge relief to the Spurs’ cap situation… (but that’s a big “IF”, in this economy i don’t think he will pass on “free money” hope i’m wrong…), but before that lets hope that the Spurs will be champs this upcoming season.

    The Spurs surely understands why Tony wants to play for his country… but now they maybe a little too cautious about injuries because they don’t want to repeat what happened last season (with Manu). Besides as the current roster is built, it seems like our only true point guard is Tony. George Hill has been progressing and is still developing and learning the PG role…

  • Kaveh

    Easier said than done, but if there was one person i really wouldn’t be worried about regarding injuries, it would be Tony Parker. He is still young, in his peak and is athletically a freak of nature (so quick). In fact, i sincerely believe that TP is the best PG in the entire NBA.

    Now Manu and TD are another matter entirely. The injury worrying should be squarely concentrated on those two, lol.

  • Sean

    Lockout is very likely. Owners have all the leverage. Most NBA players live paycheck to paycheck. NBA’s Player’s Union is incompetent. Look for big changes in next CBA.

  • BigJ

    Sean,

    Is that really true about NBA players living paycheck to paycheck? How is that possible? Is it the whole “living the life” mentality?

    I suppose the NBA should begin financial management classes for their employees.

  • Bentley

    maisar abdull,

    yeah the trio of odom, artest, and bryant is going to be a hard one to take down. But the Spurs have never cruised to any championship(except for maybe the 99 season)

    We took down the 2000-02 Laker dynasty, plus beat two very talented teams in Phoenix and Detroit in 05.

    It’ll be hard to beat LA, and they will definitely be the favorites to repeat. But the Spurs still have a good shot at beating them. And if not, lets hope another team can take them down, like Dallas or Denver or something.

    But we will definitely be their main challengers this season

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