Player Preview 2010 - Kyle Korver

Don't know how I ended up with the injured players for this year's previews.  So that makes it little harder to come up with what they're suppose to contribute this season, but we'll give it a shot.

Korver was of course a bit dinged up last season (who wasn't though?).  His wrist had bothered him pretty much all year.  Despite that, he played in 78 games for the Jazz.

It appeared that his wrist got better as the season went on and his stats seem to back that up.  All of his shooting percentages went up after the break.  That was in large part to having a huge March.  In that month he shot almost 54% overall and 50% from three-point land.

In the final 8 games of the season (April), he fell off a cliff with the rest of the team and didn't do well at all.

Korver was one of the three potential free agents for the Jazz.  The bleak free agent market affected him like everyone else.  He wasn't going to get $6M from another team, at least from a team that would be a good fit.

So much to the delight of of the xx chromosomes in Utah, he opted back in.  Financially it hurt the Jazz pretty bad.

So at present state, we all know that Korver is out after having been diagnosed with a bone spur on his knee. He had been trying to take care of things with just resting it, but it wasn't getting any better. That's when he went for the second opinion and they found the spur.  Man, we haven't even played San Antonio this season and they're already causing problems.   He's set to get his cast off when the Jazz are out in NY this month.

From what I found, bone spurs are caused,

... as the body tries to repair itself by building extra bone. It generally forms in response to pressure, rubbing, or stress that continues over a long period of time.

...Bone spurs also form in the feet in response to tight ligaments, to activities such as dancing and running that put stress on the feet, and to pressure from being overweight or from poorly fitting shoes.

Looks like you need to switch away from the Converse shoes.

Doesn't look like playing golf or dodge ball over the summer would have done anything to agitate it.  They would have come on regardless.  He could have been in some pain though.

Anyway, what that all means is that we're not going to have him back until probably December and who knows how long it will take for him to get back into the rhythm of things.

Hopefully it comes soon as we're missing shooters right now and that's the one thing we have him for.

What will be nice when he and CJ finally come back is that it will seem as if we've traded for a couple of quality players for nothing.  It will be like two years ago when Korver came to the SLC for practically nothing.

Whether or not he will be back with the Jazz next season remains to be seen.  He would probably have to take a pay cut to do so.  But if there's leftover cash somewhere next season with a contending team, he could be making girls in a new city swoon.