Healthy players are a little hard to find

By JERRY ZGODA, Star Tribune

Last update: December 19, 2007 - 11:04 PM

Illness and injury were the themes Wednesday at Target Center, where former Timberwolf Troy Hudson arrived with Golden State for the first time only to learn his career might be over because of a hip injury and where Wolves coach Randy Wittman had his pick of players to place on the night's inactive list.

Wittman told Marko Jaric to remain at his downtown condo a few blocks away so the ill starting guard wouldn't spread his germs to a team that after Friday's home game against Indiana is headed on a five-game trip that starts Saturday in New Orleans and hits the West Coast after Christmas. Veterans Antoine Walker (ankle) and Greg Buckner (calf) also continued to be sidelined on a night when Craig Smith played ill, rookie Corey Brewer played with a hip pointer injured in practice Tuesday and Wittman learned the "good news" that exploratory arthroscopic surgery on veteran center Theo Ratliff's knee could keep him out only another six weeks.

"We've gone from a team of 15 and how are we going to play them all to a team of about nine and everybody's going to have an opportunity," said Wittman, who designated Buckner, Ratliff and Randy Foye as his three inactive players.

For a night, that meant even little-used guard Gerald Green, who had played seven minutes in the team's previous eight games, played.

"This will be an opportunity for Gerald," Wittman said before the third-year guard scored 18 points in 30 minutes. "I keep telling them it's going to come. They don't always believe you."

Wittman said sports orthopedic surgeon James Andrews found only a small tear in Ratliff's meniscus knee cartilage that he repaired during exploratory surgery in Birmingham, Ala., on Tuesday. Ratliff has not played since taking himself out of a Nov. 16 game because he felt popping in his knee as he ran down the court.

"The goods news is that's all they could see," Wittman said, "and this [Andrews] is one of the most renowned guys there is."

The end?

Golden State coach Don Nelson said Hudson's career could be over because of an arthritic hip condition that has limited him to nine games played this season and could require replacement surgery later in life.

"It's a big 'if' there whether he can ever play again," Nelson said.

Hudson will seek two other specialist's opinions. On Tuesday, he discussed a surgical procedure with a doctor to remove spurs from the hip that would require a 1½-year recovery period -- which essentially could end the career for a 31-year-old guard who is signed to a one-year contract with the Warriors.

Hudson, whose contract the Wolves bought out last summer, said he is hopeful he'll receive good news from another doctor and said he'd be happy with his 10-year NBA career if it ends tomorrow because he was an undrafted college player who was "told I'd never play in the NBA."

Waiting

Walker missed his third consecutive game. "I came back too soon," said Walker, who reaggravated the injury Friday against Seattle. "It's too early in the season. I'm not going to try that again."