Tony Parker — having a career season where television pundits throw his name in the MVP conversation — didn’t want to sit out.
He did Sunday anyway, missing the Spurs win over Phoenix, but only after his efforts to hide his triceps injury from coach Gregg Popovich fell short, reports Mike Monroe of he Express-News.An inadvertent elbow from guard Chris Paul hit the Spurs point guard just above the right elbow in Thursday’s game against the Clippers, but Parker stayed mum about how sore he was even after warming up and discovering his perimeter shot was affected by the pain.
“He was a little too much in hero mode,” Popovich said. “He really wasn’t forthcoming. We didn’t realize it until about halfway through the game when he didn’t shoot any (perimeter) shots. I would have sat him in that game, and that’s definitely why we’re sitting him tonight.”
“I told Pop, ‘You know me. I’ve been here 10 years, and I don’t complain about injuries. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t tell you.’ He said, ‘With something like this, you’ve got to tell me.’ ” Parker said.
The good news for Spurs fans is that Parker expects to return to the court Wednesday. This isn’t a long-term thing.
Parker is averaging 21.1 points a game on 53.6 percent shooting, he’s hitting 37.9 percent of his threes and he’s averaging 7.6 assists per game, too. He has a PER of 24.6. He deserves to be in the MVP conversation — third in the conversation, but in it.
