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Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden injured his right thumb in the team’s win over the New York Knicks on Tuesday. X-rays the following day revealed a non-displaced fracture of the distal phalanx, which is the top of the thumb. The team hasn’t yet announced a timetable for his return.
According to ESPN’s Shams Charania, Harden could be back sooner rather than later. Even though he didn’t play in Wednesday’s loss to the Milwaukee Bucks, it’s reported that he is planning on playing through the right thumb fracture, and surgery will not be required.
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Estimating a timetable for a complete recovery from this injury is difficult if you don’t know the severity. The best estimate is that it could be two to four weeks before it completely heals.
On one hand, it’s easy to see why Harden would want to play through this. He needs to find time to gel with his new teammates, and he’s running out of time to do so with the playoffs just around the corner.
At the same time, the Cavs will need to be at or near 100% if they want to have postseason success. Bringing Harden back too early could jeopardize that.
We’ll see how this unfolds. The Cavs play two of their next three games against the conference-leading Detroit Pistons, with their first coming on the road on Friday evening. Getting to see how Harden plays in that matchup is enticing, but a physical Detroit team could be the last opponent you’d want to subject a guard with a broken thumb to.
Harden has played seven games with the Cavs. He’s averaging 18.9 points and 8 assists on .494/.488/.867 shooting splits.