Alas poor Jaric!

Marko Jaric, PG, LA Clippers

Marko Jaric is again being bothered by pain in his right foot.

This is the same foot in which he suffered a stress fracture in late December. He proceeded to miss 17 games.

Ironically, Jaric told the O.C. Register that the foot started bothering him again only after he had a knee-on-knee collision with a Philadelphia defender in the Clippers' game on Sunday night. Hm, that's strange. He told the LA Times that he would have taken himself out of the game if the Clippers weren't already so shorthanded (see: Corey Maggette, Shaun Livingston, and Kerry Kittles).

Perhaps this is what caused Marko to chug so much cock against the Sixers, putting up zero points (yes that's right), 5 rebounds, 7 asssists, and 3 turnovers, while contributing nothing on the defensive end. Took him 30 minutes to do that.

About the injury, Jaric said tellingly, "My foot started hurting me, again. It's so frustrating."

Marko, imagine how your fantasy owners must feel!

What's interesting about this injury, you may ask?

Well I'll tell you what's interesting. If you read my article a couple of weeks ago about Pau Gasol's plantar fasciitis, you would have read that plantar fasciitis feels to the person who is injured a lot like stress fractures of the heel. The two are often misdiagnosed for one another.

Before you start thinking I'm a nut who has plantar fasciitis on the brain, please refer to this article, dated 11/19/2003, from the Official Website of the Los Angeles Clippers. In it you'll find that a November 2003 MRI revealed a partial tear of the plantar fascia of his left foot.

He came back that season only to go back to the IL in March of 2004 (same season) after an MRI revealed that what was initially thought to be a "deep bone bruise" (it's never a deep bone bruise... a "bruise" is what you call it when you are too scared to do an MRI) was, in point of fact, a stress fracture of the second metatarsal of the left foot.

Hmmmm...

No, it's not the same foot as it is this time around.

But if you're like me, you're more worried now that he has long-term injury concerns in both feet.

Furthermore, if you buy into my argument (and the arguments of many whose medical credentials are far more impressive than having worked for two summers in a doctor's office) that some people have poorly structured feet that distribute pressure along the foot in ways more likely to cause chronic foot injuries, you should be very concerned about Jaric's foot.

Make that feet.

We still don't know what's really going on here. Expect another MRI on this foot very soon.

In related news, Shaun Livington's dislocated right kneecap feels fine, he's practicing with the team, and he's expected to return before the All-Star Break. He'd be cutting into Jaric's minutes even if Marko were completely healthy.

Now might be a good time to eschew conventional wisdom and sell low on Jaric.