The Golden State Warriors are off to the best start in NBA history and although they are an extremely talented team they have needed some luck to get to their 18-0 mark. A little more than a month into the season a lot of teams are banged up right now but the Warriors haven't had many injuries prompting LeBron James to say they are the healthiest team he has ever seen. Well now they have an injury to deal with to Harrison Barnes but fortunately it doesn't appear to be too serious, according to Rusty Simmons of The San Francisco Chronicle.
The Warriors have already ruled Barnes out for the next three games as they are set to embark on a seven game road trip beginning with Monday night's game against the Utah Jazz. The Warriors hope that Barnes will be able to return for their December 6th game against the Brooklyn Nets but they have no plans to rush him back.
"With an ankle sprain, it could be a few weeks, it could be one week, we'll wait to hear back from the doctors, and we'll move on if he's out, and we have other guys who'll be anxious to step up for us. Obviously, like we always preach, we're not going to rush him back because we want to be healthy later in the season, and we don't want lingering injuries," said interim head coach Luke Walton, according to Carl Steward of the San Jose Mercury News.
Barnes sat out Saturday's game against the Sacramento Kings, the first game he has missed all season, and the Warriors still won easily. In his place Brandon Rush got the start, not Andre Iguodala, and it appears that it will stay that way. Barnes said he hasn't had too many ankle sprains in his career so he doesn't really have anything to compare this to but added that he was in a lot of pain.
In his three year career the former North Carolina Tar Heel has been somewhat of an ironman as he had only missed five total games before this season. Barnes also happened to be playing the best basketball of his career before the injury as he is averaging 13.4 points on 50 percent shooting from the field through 17 games this season. The good news for the Warriors and Barnes is that there is nothing structurally wrong with his ankle and he will miss minimal time so while they were finally hit by the injury bug they fortunately were not hit too hard this time.
