The 2018-19 NBA regular season is still over 10 days away, but we've already seen some key players go down with injuries. The Dallas Mavericks' Harrison Barnes is expected to be out "a while" after tweaking his hamstring, while the Chicago Bulls will be without Lauri Markkanen for six to eight weeks with an elbow strain.
Hoping not to be the next team to announce a major injury to a key player, the Golden State Warriors are playing it safe with Draymond Green. The All-Star forward has been dealing with knee soreness in recent days, and the team doesn't have an exact timeline for his return. Coach Steve Kerr said an MRI on Green's knee was clean, but because he's still dealing with some inflammation, the team is being cautious. Via NBC Sports Bay Area:
The right knee soreness that Draymond Green experienced Tuesday, keeping him out of Warriors practice, lingered into Wednesday and likely will keep him off the court for the rest of the week.
"Just being careful," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after practice. "He still had a little inflammation this morning."
An MRI test on the knee was clean, according to Kerr, who at this time doesn't consider this to be a long-term problem.
At this point it doesn't seem like this is anything serious for Green, but it's certainly something to monitor as we move forward. On the one hand, it's good news that the MRI is clean and he doesn't have a serious injury requiring surgery, but at the same time a diagnosis from the MRI would have at least given the Warriors a clear path moving forward.
As it stands, Green has some sort of vague knee soreness that's leading to inflammation. That's never a good thing for a big man to hear a few weeks before the season starts. Especially someone like Green who relies so much on his athleticism and has played hundreds of extra playoff minutes in the past four seasons. Hopefully this will indeed turn out to be just a little soreness that goes away in a few weeks and not something he has to deal with all season.
