Bell Looks to Avoid Surgery
Bobcats SG Raja Bell has decided to opt against surgery on a torn ligament in his left wrist for the time being, hoping that he can recover naturally enough to play this season. If he underwent the surgery, he could be out for upwards of four months.
“I’m going to [sit out] for another week to see if it continues to progress as it has, then I’ll probably wind up playing,” Bell said. “If it doesn’t, then we’ll go back to the drawing board.”
He was initially injured in an exhibition game on Oct. 18, when his wrist was bent back awkwardly when he went after a loose ball. He sat out the last two preseason games, opting to visit a Chicago hand specialist instead – the specialist said he could play if he could deal with the pain.
“I’m pretty encouraged,” Bell said. “It’s feeling a lot better than it did. I still have some hurdles to clear with it, but I feel good.”
While Bell has been the team’s best defensive stopper since the Bobcats acquired him from Phoenix in December, he appears skeptical that he’d be as effective currently with the wrist injury.
“Defensively, it’s tough. It’s hard to kind of put your hand on people, it jams it,” Bell said. “Taking a charge would probably be a scary thought for me right now. And it gets so heavily taped that passing and dribbling, anything to my left, is a problem. That really hinders your game. … I have to be able to play with a little less tape to be effective.”
Bell could also explore arthroscopic surgery on the wrist if it doesn’t improve in a week, as the arthroscopic surgery could only take four to six weeks to recover from (compared to the three to four months it’d take if he had the ligament surgically repaired).
