Chris Paul Injured: Clippers Star Has Surgery On Thumb, Out For 8 Weeks

Chris Paul fought through pain during the 2012 London Olympics to help the USA Basketball team win gold. But now he’s paying the price. Paul had surgery to repair a torn ligament in his thumb on Tuesday and will be out for at least eight weeks.

Pro Basketball Talk reports that Paul injured his thumb during the USA Basketball training camp. The Clippers star rested the injury for a few days but returned to the team for the Olympic tournament.

Now that the Olympics are over, however, and, with a few months before the start of the NBA season, Paul decided to take care of his injury.

The procedure was done by Dr. Steven Shin, a hand specialist at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic, and Paul should only miss about eight weeks. According to MSNBC, that means that Paul should be back for game one of the regular season but he will miss a large portion of the pre-season training camp.

Coach Vinny Del Negro told the LA Times:

“I don’t want to put an exact date on it … When he’s ready to play, he’ll play. But I expect him back sometime during training camp. I don’t know when, but the most important thing is to get ready for the start of the season.”

Paul’s injury is the second major injury for the Clippers during the off-season. Blake Griffin left team USA this summer to have knee surgery. Unlike Paul, however, Griffin is expected to be ready for training camp.

Del Negro said that Paul and Blake both made good decisions to get surgery during the off-season. Hopefully, that will lead to an injury free year for the Clippers.

Del Negro said:

“Getting the Chris thing done was good and getting the Blake thing done was good … Now we’ve got to move forward.”