The LA Clippers have dealt with a number of injuries over the last few years, but they're hoping their 2017-18 campaign starts off with everyone at or close to 100 percent. On Monday's Media Day in Los Angeles, Clippers players met with members of the media and among the discussed topics was the injury status of their two stars Blake Griffin and Danilo Gallinari.
This new season for LA will feature nine new players on the roster, including two or three new starters and four likely significant rotation pieces coming off the bench. A team whose offense heavily relied on Griffin,Chris Paul, and at times Jamal Crawford off the bench will look to move the ball a lot more with two of those three now gone.
With the new-look roster, the Clippers will need to stay healthy if they hope to pursue a playoff spot in April. Head coach Doc Rivers opened up about his players' statuses, discussing his newly traded-for Gallinari, who suffered a fractured hand throwing a punch at an opponent at a Eurobasket friendly in August.
“Gallo's good as long as no one pisses him off,” said Rivers in his opening statement. “He'll be fine. He's healthy right now.”
Gallinari himself added that he's been on the court for a week playing basketball and taking contact as well, so a return to 100 percent health is on the horizon.
“Injury wise, I'm feeling very good,” said Gallinari. “I started playing basketball a week ago so doing some contact. I'm ready to play, ready to go.”
Although the Clippers' Italian forward is ready to go, Griffin is still a little behind, but says that he's ready to start training camp on Tuesday in Hawaii.
“I feel great, health wise,” said Griffin. “I've pretty much done everything over the past month and a half, so I expect to go tomorrow and not have any setbacks.”
Alongside Griffin on the injury report right now are guards Austin Rivers and Milos Teodosic, who are dealing with undisclosed injuries/illnesses.
“Milos, Blake, and Austin are probably in the same category, we just have to watch all three of them,” added Doc Rivers. “Not the exact way you wanna go into camp because those three guys are real important to how we play, but we've got to make sure we get through this five or six week period before the first game and keep them healthy.”
Griffin suffered an injury to the plantar plate in his right big toe in Game 3 of the first round series against the Utah Jazz. Reports on his potential return date have differed from opening night all the way to December, but it seems like Griffin is on track to return sooner rather than later. Austin Rivers was reportedly dealing with an illness that kept him off the court for weeks, while Teodosic is still dealing with an injury that kept him out of the Eurobasket competition in early September that saw his native Serbia win the silver medal.
“Blake hasn't played much, he just started playing,” said Rivers. “Milos started playing a couple weeks ago. Austin probably hasn't played in 4-5 weeks. I think all of them will be cleared to play tomorrow so that's a good thing. so we can start out with all of them on the floor. I think the key for all of them is we just have to monitor them and do the right thing to get them ready for the first game.”
The Clippers take off for Hawaii late Monday for their week-long training camp as well as a pair of preseason games against the Toronto Raptors next week. This week will go a long way towards the team finding out a lot about themselves and building the chemistry needed to take on an 82-game season in an ultra-competitive Western Conference.
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