Utah Jazz guard Joe Ingles denied the speculations that he had finger surgery, calling it ‘terrible rumor' during his interview with DesererNews.com's Eric Woodyard.
“It’s funny because I don’t even know how that came out and that reporter is an Australian football and cricket reporter, so I don’t know how. I didn’t tell anyone. No one knew except my agent and obviously the Jazz but the only thing I can think of is the place I had an MRI and stuff to get it checked out. I don’t know if someone saw me or he saw me there and just assumed something but obviously with anything these days you get it checked out. I did that and then obviously the next thing was just to send it to the Jazz and speak to them, so it got blown out of proportion.”
Ingles said that he has a finger injury, but it does not require surgery and it has nothing to do with the similar injury he suffered in the past.
“Completely different hand, different finger. With basketball, as in any sport, you jam fingers, you do all this stuff and you just get them checked out, especially with it being summer you don’t want to be doing anything silly, so you’ve got time to recover. If something was bad, I’ve got time to recover and obviously with the World Cup coming up it was a quick fix and have a look at it and coincidentally I was coming here (to Utah) anyway so it’s worked out well. I’ll go see the hand guy just to see his opinion and I’ll obviously protect it. It was just a bad jam so I will protect it, but I don’t know how that leaked.”
Ingles will suit up for the Australia Boomers in the 2019 FIBA World Cup, which will be held in China from August 31-September 15. He's also going to play a vital role for the Jazz next season, as the team hopes to legitimize itself as a championship contender. Any injury could hurt the veteran guard's plans this summer, so it's a good thing that he's doing fine.
The 31-year-old marksman was impressive for the Jazz last season, averaging career bests in points (12.1) and assists (5.7).
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