What’s next for injured Clippers star Paul George?

From the outset, Dr. Alan Beyer said he had scant hope that the Clippers’ Paul George would be cleared when doctors planned again to evaluate him, three to four weeks after the team’s Christmas Day announcement that he’d suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.

A sports medicine specialist and executive medical director at Hoag Orthopedic Institute in Irvine, Beyer said he anticipated it would take a minimum of six to eight weeks for the seven-time All-Star to return to action.

But, Beyer said, it’s unlikely that the injury will require an operation akin to what baseball pitchers have when they undergo Tommy John surgery, which often keeps them out of commission for about a year.

“I can’t think off the top of my head of one basketball player having this fixed with surgery,” he said by phone Wednesday, the day after word came that George’s period of rest would be extended for a few weeks more to see how his elbow responds.

Beyer said when basketball players suffer UCL tears – and it’s rare – it’s the result of a traumatic injury, one that occurs due to a blow to the arm in a game, perhaps, and not because of chronic overuse that puts a ligament under long-term stress, such as what occurs in a pitcher’s constantly contorted elbow.

And the sudden nature of the basketball version of the injury is what can help it heal, Beyer said.

“An acute injury like that is going to have the ability to have blood supply come in and heal it,” he said, noting that often, patients will receive one or two PRP injections (platelet-rich plasma therapy using a concentration of their own platelets to accelerate the healing of injured ligaments, tendons, muscles or joints).

Then, patients will rest the injured ligament and let it settle before slowly resuming a range of motion to get the stiffness out of it. A couple of weeks after that, they might begin to engage in some activities that test its strength.

“It’s like an ankle sprain: Shut it down, rest, put in a boot – or in a splint to rest it, let it heal,” Beyer said. “Do the PRP and then you start a vigorous rehabilitation program in the third or fourth week.”

In George’s case, Beyer said he expects doctors didn’t see enough of a progression to allow the Clippers forward to dial up his activity yet.

And actions such as waving a rally flag at an NFL playoff game or scrambling eggs – both of which George has been shown doing on social media lately – don’t count.

“That doesn’t impart a lot of stress on the elbow,” Beyer said. “If he was lifting weights in an awkward position and had a weight out in his hand and imparting a large force, that would be one thing. But scrambling eggs? A whisk doesn’t put much stress on the elbow.”

That it’s George’s shooting elbow that’s injured might affect his recovery process in some fashion, Beyer said.

“Basketball is such a touch sport,” Beyer said. “If a guy feels something is a little bit off , that’s always gonna be a problem as far as it getting in their head and suddenly they’re not shooting as well if it doesn’t feel the same.”

But Beyer said he could only foresee George having to have surgery – a prospect for which “we don’t have any data” for basketball players, the doctor said – if the 31-year-old forward’s ligament were to be injured again and became loose or if, after 12 weeks, he’s unable to throw a basketball.

“That,” he said, “would require a much more serious look-see.”

He doesn’t anticipate that.

Before he was hurt, George was the Clippers’ focal point without fellow All-Star Kawhi Leonard, who is rehabbing after July 13 surgery to repair a torn right anterior cruciate ligament.

George was leading his team in points (24.7), assists (5.5) and steals (2.0), and was second in rebounds (7.1 rebounds) through 26 games. For his efforts, he was fourth among Western Conference frontcourt players when the NBA released its second batch of voting returns last week.

Overall this season, the Clippers were 8-11 without him entering Wednesday’s game in Denver.

BATUM BACK IN PROTOCOLS

The Clippers also were 8-11 in games that forward Nicolas Batum had missed this season.

Just a couple of days after Luke Kennard and Justise Winslow became the final Clippers players to exit the COVID-19 health and safety protocols, Batum reentered Wednesday. Marcus Morris Sr. also was out Wednesday, for personal reasons.

Batum had a previous bout with COVID-19 earlier this season, when he missed nine games and said, after he returned to the court on Dec. 8, he’d felt “pretty sick.”

On Nov. 28, the World Health Organization stated that it was seeing preliminary evidence suggesting an increased risk of reinfection with the omicron strain as compared with other variants.

Although the league’s current guidelines state that players who have recovered within 60 days aren’t required to undergo game day or surveillance testing, they can be subject to testing if symptomatic, if they were exposed to a COVID-19-positive individual or if their team is in daily enhanced testing, according to a tweet from the NBA on Jan. 14.

Some players have been able to exit protocols more quickly since Dec. 27. On the same day that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cut isolation restrictions for Americans who catch the coronavirus to five days from 10, the NBA reportedly sent a memo to teams informing them that isolation periods for players who test positive may be shortened to six days from 10 – if those players are asymptomatic and meet other testing standards.

Below is an overview of the current Covid-19 surveillance testing requirements for NBA players. pic.twitter.com/gm7L994p5d

— NBA Communications (@NBAPR) January 14, 2022