First, let me mention that Mickael Gelabale is also, to some extent, part of the Sonics walking wounded. He was banged up when he took a hard fall while going up to dunk and being met at the summit during Tuesday's practice, possibly hurting his hip. However, the injury didn't stop him from playing and playing well today.
P.J. Carlesimo indicated the tendinitis Robert Swift has experienced in his right knee was probably not a surprise as he comes back from surgery to repair his ACL.
Multiple injuries have cut into the numbers for the Sonics. Carlesimo was planning on two 10-minute scrimmages, but ended up doing just one.
"We were only going to go once today anyhow," said Carlesimo. "It will be good not going tonight and we'll probably have to be a little more careful tomorrow and Saturday."
Two-a-days continue tomorrow and Saturday. Carlesimo changed the contact practice to tomorrow evening, while the second non-contact practice will be in the morning.
With only 12 players available to scrimmage, Carlesimo was asked after practice about the decision to go with just 15 players in camp.
"I didn't want extra guys here," Carlesimo explained. "We brought JJ (Jermaine Jackson) here because we thought we needed another point guard if we were going to look at Delonte (West) at two. JJ's perfect, because he can play one or two. I purposely didn't bring in extra bigs, extra anything else, because we've got guys we want to look at. Instead of wanting to go three teams or bringing other guys in and you feel guilty you're not looking at them ... but this is the flipside of that. You leave yourself open to if a couple more guys go down, we can't really scrimmage."
Carlesimo was also asked whether he expects to keep 15 players on the final roster.
"There's a possibility," he said. "I haven't thought about it much, but my leaning would be 14 to have flexibility, but Sam (Presti) still has flexibility. We could have 15 and still do anything he wants to do. I haven't really thought about it since a month ago when we talked about how many we were bringing in."
After three days and five practices, Carlesimo is very pleased with his charges.
"To be honest with you, I could be pleased with less cooperation and enthusiasm and effort than we've been getting," he said. "This has been way above average. This has been A+ effort, A+ energy, A+ enthusiasm and attention to doing things. I'm delighted with that. They could have been B+, but I would have said that was okay for all the new stuff we're throwing them. They've been way above average."
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