If the Sacramento Kings’ 21-year-old rookie power forward Hassan Whiteside has anything to say about it, he will be back and ready to go tomorrow when the team takes on the Utah Jazz on the road. Whiteside went down in the first week of camp with a strained left patella tendon. Since then, he has spent most of his time rehabbing and trying to maintain his new weight of 250-pounds. Until yesterday, Whiteside was held out of all basketball activities. Today, he returned and played 5 on 5 full court where he made a handful of nifty plays. Here are some quotes from Hassan after practice today:
- On what the first two days back from injury have been like: “It’s been going really good, I’m just trying to catch up on the plays and just getting my wind back and getting used to playing basketball.”
- On his first full contact practice: “It was weird because I forgot how to box out and all that and I messed up on a couple of plays but I’m just getting adjusted to it.”
- On how his legs are feeling: “They’re feeling good, they’re just tired.”
- On whether he feels like he is being aggressive: “Yeah, I feel like I’m being aggressive, just being stronger now, coming in and playing hard.
- On how the knee specifically is feeling: “It’s sore, really sore.”
If either Whiteside or Dalembert can get healthy, the Kings front line takes on a whole new defensive look. Hopefully neither player has a set back that causes them to miss even more time.
On a side note, the Q & A with Whiteside was done in a group setting today. Most of the questions posed to Hassan Whiteside came from the Kings’ Andrew Nicholson, who led the initial round of questioning.
Camp notes and a continuation of The Purple Panjandrum’s interview series will be up shortly.
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