Raja Bell To Have Surgery On Wrist, Could Miss Rest Of Season

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Raja Bell, who was just traded from Charlotte to Golden State, will have surgery to repair the torn ligament in his left wrist after all.

The surgery could sideline Bell for the entire season, depending on whether screws are needed to hold the wrist in place. If not, he’ll likely miss four to five weeks. Bell said he expects the worst, so it’s looking like his season might be over.

“I’m going into it, assuming it will be a big surgery,” Bell said. "If I wake up and it’s not, it’s icing on the cake. I’m prepared for the worst-case scenario, and I’ll go from there.

The natural reaction by some (including John Hollinger) is that this is a not-so-subtle way of Bell saying he has no interest in playing for Golden State. However, Don Nelson told the Chronicle that they actually pushed Bell to get the surgery instead of having him play through the pain.

The Warriors knew about Bell’s injury when they acquired him. They encouraged the decision to go ahead with the surgery.

“We knew going in that his wrist is a problem, and it’s not getting any better,” Nelson said. “I think this is the right thing to do for him and for us. We’re happy with his decision, but it does leave us in a bit of a hole.”

According to AP reporter Mike Cranston, Bobcats starting shooting guard Raja Bell is leaning toward putting off surgery on the torn ligament in his left wrist.

Bell said Tuesday he’ll sit out the first week of the season. But if he makes progress, he’ll try to play. Surgery would sideline him up to four months.

Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer sheds some light on Bell’s thinking as weighs his options:

He hasn’t made a final decision whether to have surgery to repair that torn ligament, and he won’t until he hears back from a hand specialist in Chicago. Surgery could cost him four months of inactivity.

But there was Bell, wrist heavily wrapped, working out with a weighted ball, shooting 3-pointers and going through layup drills.

Sure looked like a guy predisposed to toughing it out by skipping that surgery. Is this about obligation?

“There is an obligation,” said Bell, as savvy a guy as you’ll meet in the NBA. "But there are two obligations: one to my family and myself and my career and (another) obligation to the team that I’m a part of. Being a competitor and a businessman, I’m kind of split down the middle.

“Hopefully this (specialist) comes back, tells me I’m fine to play, and then I don’t have to make a decision.’’

SBN’s Rufus on Fire reacts to the injury, and hopes, if not necessarily season-altering news, that it’s at least harbinger of more Henderson:

…the potentially good news is that we could get a better look at Gerald Henderson sooner rather than later. I’ve long been on record with the position that for where Charlotte is in their success cycle, if a rookie isn’t totally embarrassing on the floor, he needs to play right away so we can get a fuller idea of his capabilities.

First, it’s established that Larry Brown has an unhealthy predilection for rookie suppression. Even if a young player isn’t quite as good as a veteran player, there are ample reasons to play the youngster over the vet in certain contexts. For instance, on a team with zero championship aspirations and another young piece of the core in the back court, it might be prudent to get those guys playing together as often as possible so that they are symbiotic when the team does make a charge through the playoffs. Brown will play rookies big minutes, but only, it seems, when there’s no real choice to be made. That bodes ill for Henderson, since Ronald Murray is around, shin issues notwithstanding.

However — and this is something a lot of coaches do, not just Brown — it’s possible Henderson will start games in Bell’s absence so as not to disrupt the “roles” everyone else has been assigned. This is a real long shot, especially since it’s the start of the season and “roles” haven’t really been established, but bear with me.

Say Brown has determined that D.J. Augustin is the PG off the bench and Flip is the first SG off the bench. Well, he might simply keep those guys in those “roles” and start Henderson at the SG spot. The start, itself, isn’t really important, as much as the minutes Henderson might get, and with Murray’s ability to play both guard spots and Brown’s willingness to play Raymond Felton alongside Augustin last year, Henderson might still see only a few minutes per game, even if he gets to be put in the spotlight and high five everyone during pregame introductions.

For the record, Gerald Henderson was described as “marvelous off the bench” in the aforementioned Bonnell article, and had 14 points on 7-8 shooting, his finest showing of the preseason. And perhaps a sign of things to come?