Well, the voodoo hex is on. Every starter on the team suffered from an illness or injury during training camp. Juwan Howard severely sprained his right ankle in the second quarter of an intra-squad scrimmage at Shepherd College last night, as reported by Ric Bucher of the Washington Post.
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James Brown Gets The Call
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Also reported in today's Post, James Brown will do play-by-play for 10 Wizards games during the season - 6 on HTS, 2 on WUSA-9, and 2 on WBDC-50. Steve Buckhantz will handle the other games. Phil Chenier will serve as color commentator with both announcers.
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This doesn't seem to be a light sprain, either. He screamed in pain when it happend, then lay on the floor for several minutes with his face covered by a towel before being carried to the locker room. He received x-rays at Martinsburg Memorial Hospital last night, and the results were negative. However, when a sprain hurts that much, it's going to be bad and linger for a while. Juwan may return to the floor soon, but he's going to be hampered by it for a while, especially in terms of quickness in guarding small forwards.
How it happened isn't quite clear. He was caught up in traffic after double-pumping (and missing) a lay-up being contested by CWebb. Chuck Kornegay grabbed the rebound and dunked it. It was unclear whether Kornegay collided with Howard and knocked him down, or whether Howard went down on his own.
Now we wait and see what type of impact this has on Juwan and the team. They have their first preseason game tonight against the San Antonio Spurs at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, VA, on the campus of George Mason University.
October
