The San Antonio Spurs will be without point guard Tony Parker for their next two games, the team announced tonight. He apparently suffered the injury in the first half Monday night in the team’s 115-92 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Spurs are good this season (19-5 record). Of course they are. Parker is having a good season. Of course he is. In 23 games played he is averaging 17.5 points and 6.1 assists per game. According to John Hollinger’s Player Efficiency Ratings (PER) on ESPN.com, Parker is the 9th best point guard in the league with a 19.98 mark.
The most interesting thing about Parker is the perception that he is really old; he is only 31 years old. He is no pup, but he is young compared to his elder teammates Tim Duncan (age 37) and Manu Ginobili (age 36). Many people assume he is in the same stage of his career as those guys, but he is not.
Still, one would assume that head coach Gregg Popovich will take this as another opportunity to prove how little regular season games in December matter. It makes sense that Parker is sitting out an upcoming back-to-back scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Just don’t be surprised if he ends up resting for more time beyond that, because even with high profile match-ups against the Golden State Warriors and Oklahoma City Thunder upcoming, nobody’s going to rush Pop into sending his star back out there for regular season action.