Harden hurt again in Thunder practice
September 30, 2009
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP)—Oklahoma City Thunder rookie James Harden’s(notes) first trainingcamp is off to a rough start.
The No. 3 overall pick in this year’s draft got poked in the eye on hisfirst day of training camp. On Wednesday, he had to leave practice again afterrolling his ankle.
“Those things happen when you play hard and compete. That’s the game,”coach Scott Brooks said. “You can’t go a game or a season without being nickedup sometime. Hopefully he gets his out of the way early.”
Brooks said Harden’s injury isn’t severe. The Thunder have opened trainingcamp with back-to-back sessions of two-a-day practices.
Brooks also held center Nenad Krstic(notes) out of practice to let him rest afterplaying this summer for the Serbian national team. Serbia made it to the finalsof the European basketball championship before losing to Spain only 10 days ago.
“He’s in great shape,” Brooks said. “We’re just going to be careful withhis minutes.”
“We definitely need some reps, but we’re going to monitor them in practiceand in games,” he added. “(For the season opener), we want him ready and freshand full strength, and he will be. He’s been around the game a lot of years andhe knows how to get his body ready.”
Forward Nick Collison(notes) sat out for a second straight day with a sprainedankle and is considered day to day. Brooks said Collison was walking betterWednesday, but it’s still too early to tell if he’ll miss Oklahoma City’spreseason opener at Memphis on Oct. 7.
“He’s a winning basketball player and I understand what he does for ourteam,” Brooks said. “He creates a lot of situations that help us win games. Heknows his role as well as anybody on our team, but you’d like to have him out.He would like to be out there.”
Mike Harris(notes) became the fourth non-roster invitee to training camp, joiningRyan Bowen(notes), Tre Kelley(notes) and Michael Ruffin(notes).