Training camp update: Day 15.

Sunday is typically a scrimmage day for the team, which according to Coach Westphal, they love. As soon as the screen was lifted today, Omri Casspi went down in a heap, clutching his left ankle. The mood turned somber and the scrimmage ended with the trainer tending to Casspi while the rest of the team held their post practice meeting. Turns out Omri is okay, and after a bit of time, Casspi was not only able to get up, he was able to shoot around and sit down for a quick interview. I’ll have that up later but here is the rest of the camp news:

Injuries-

• 

  DeMarcus Cousins (right ankle strain)- Out of practice today, but day- to-day.

• Hassan Whiteside (left patella tendon)- Out still, but he’s at practice and getting closer to returning.
• Samuel Dalembert (adductor)- Out 4-6 weeks (as of 10/12/10).
• Tyreke Evans, Beno Udrih and Francisco Garcia were all at practice. The coaches held Evans out of the scrimmage, but he should be ready to go if needed on Tuesday.

Coaches notes and quotes:

• On Tyreke’s injury: “We didn’t let Tyreke practice either. He was cleared to do some work, but I figured with a couple more days, he would be better off. I expect him to play Tuesday and the rest of the guys, there didn’t seem to be any setbacks.”
• On the Jeter/Udrih match-up in practice: “It’s not just Beno; it’s how we play the screens and how the bigs rotate and things like that. We know that Beno is not as quick as Pooh, but Pooh didn’t just live in the other team’s paint. The black team did a decent job on him.”

It was unfortunate that we weren’t able to see more than just the 15 seconds of scrimmage time before Omri hit the deck. Coach Westphal blames myself, Jason Jones and Kings.com’s Nate Rose for the injury because everything was going great before he had the screen lifted. The post practice work was just as lively as yesterday. On the far courts, Carl Landry got some nice work in with Mario Ellie while Casspi shot around with Shareef Abdur-Rahim. On the near court, a large group of players took turns shooting around the arc before they broke up into smaller groups. Donté Greene worked with Truck Robinson in the post before joining Garcia and Evans for their now daily shooting competition. The mood at camp is good.