Piston’s Jerebko tweaks ankle playing for Sweden; will be fine

If you listened to every general manager and owner interviewed after the Olympics about how their star players did, the quotes pretty much all went “it’s great that they won and it’s even better that they didn’t get injured.”

Well, the Clippers didn’t say that, what with Blake Griffin (knee) and Chris Paul (thumb) needing surgery after their Team USA experiences. That is what scares teams.

So the Pistons got a lump in their throat when forward Jonas Jerebko was injured Tuesday during EuroBasket qualifying, but it turns out not to be serious according to Ball in Europe (via Pistons Powered).

The Detroit Piston was injured in Tuesday’s win against Luxembourg; while the injury is not deemed serious (he certainly won’t miss any NBA games), it comes nevertheless at a seriously bad time for the Swedes. Currently at 2-2, Team Sweden is statistically tied with Azerbaijan and Bulgaria for second place in Group B with four games to play. The top two to three teams from the group will advance to the next round.

Entering his third NBA season, Jerebko gave the Pistons a solid 23 minutes a game last season (starting 13) with 8.7 points per contest. He needs to learn to make or stop taking threes and be smarter about his game, but he’s a solid player off the bench and the Pistons are hoping he can take a step forward next season. And stay healthy, apparently.